This day in history: Yup, the cost of living has spiked beyond normal inflation. Consider the price to buy a home in Spokane in 1975

From 1975: A Spokane cost of living survey showed that the average rental price of two-bedroom apartment was $135 per month, and the average purchase price for a house was $22,450.

Home heating costs averaged about $18 per month for natural gas and $13 for electricity.

The cost of living in Spokane had dropped slightly over the past few months, mostly due to drops in rent prices.

Even considering inflation, these prices are extraordinarily low compared to today. Adjusted for inflation $22,250 equates to around $134,000, and $135 would be about $800 today. The median selling price of a home in Spokane in June 2025 was $410,000, according to the National Association of Realtors.

From 1925: “The very fabric of civilization is threatened” by people who circumvent the Prohibition laws, said Oliver W. Stewart, president of the Flying Squadron Foundation for Law Enforcement.

Stewart, from Chicago, was speaking at a mass meeting at Grace Baptist Church in Spokane. He said that “when the state fails in its duties, government collapses, carrying civilization with it in its fall.”

“The wet plan for bringing booze back in the United States is a direct blow at government,” he said. The wets do not intend to repeal the Prohibition amendment. Their best legal brains have told them it is not necessary. All they have to do is to repeal the penalties for violation of that amendment.”

In other news, a thousand firefighters were battling forest fires around the region, most of them caused by lightning storms in North Idaho the previous weekend.

The largest fire was on Smith Creek near Porthill, Idaho, neat the Canadian border. Several fires were centered on the Bonners Ferry area.

Aviators took to the skies to spot the fires. From the air, “the flames were a lurid smudgy blot at a distance and a sea of magnificent waves at close range.”