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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
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This day in history: Union, Spokane firemen’s wives persuaded city to drop plan to hire female firefighters. Popularity contest sparked lawsuit

Spokane City Manager F. Sylvin Fulwiler announced that the city was dropping an affirmative action plan to hire 10 new firefighters, some of whom may have been women, The Spokesman-Review reported on July 22, 1975. The newspaper also reported that the University of Washington had been involved in LSD experiments in the 1950s on behalf of the U.S. Army. (Spokesman-Review archives)
By Jim Kershner The Spokesman-Review

From 1975: The city canceled a plan to train women firefighters, following a protest by the wives of firefighters and the firefighters’ union.

The president of the Fire Fighter’s Wives Service Club questioned whether women would have the strength to “knock down doors and drag out bodies.”

A local official of the National Organization for Women had spoken in favor of the program, saying that “only those women who pass the physical agility tests would be retained.”

The president of the wives’ organization said safety was their main concern, as opposed to concerns about women sleeping in firehouses.

“If they’re that type of woman, they’re going to be Amazons, and I don’t think men would be attracted to them anyway,” she said.

The city left open the possibility that the program would be reintroduced later, in some other form.

From 1925: Election fraud!

The evidence was clear, and as a result, Rena Dea belatedly won $1,500 in cash in the Spokane Interstate Fair’s Popularity Contest.

Irene Haller had been declared the winner of the Spokane Interstate Fair’s Popularity Contest and won a Willys-Knight automobile. But Rena Dea claimed voter fraud and filed a lawsuit. The fair agreed to pay her $1,500, the price of a Willy-Knight, the Spokane Daily Chronicle reported on July 22, 1925 (Spokesman-Review archives)
Irene Haller had been declared the winner of the Spokane Interstate Fair’s Popularity Contest and won a Willys-Knight automobile. But Rena Dea claimed voter fraud and filed a lawsuit. The fair agreed to pay her $1,500, the price of a Willy-Knight, the Spokane Daily Chronicle reported on July 22, 1925 (Spokesman-Review archives)

Dea had filed a lawsuit after she was defeated in the contest by Irene Haller by more than a thousand votes. Dea claimed that many of the Haller votes were fraudulent, the result of vote-pooling. She alleged that other contestants had dropped out of the contest and had given all of their votes to Haller in an attempt to defeat Dea.

Attorneys for the fair looked into the matter discovered that at least one contestant had collected votes with her name written on them, but then had dropped out and given the ballots to Haller.

“Haller, in turn, stamped the name of Miss Haller over the name already written in, and then turned in the tickets,” the Chronicle said.

Fair attorneys noted that there was nothing specifically in the rules against vote-pooling, but they decided to “be good sports” and settle the lawsuit. They gave Dea $1,500, the retail value of the first-place prize, a new auto.

Haller, however, got to keep her car, and, presumably, the prestigious title of Miss Popularity.