This day in history: Post Falls population reached at least 4,400. Moonshine prices plummeted

From 1975: Post Falls was in the midst of a population boom.

With benefit of hindsight, it would be more accurate to say it was at the modest beginning of a population boom.

“The sign on Interstate 90 reads, ‘Post Falls – population 2,371,’ ” said a Spokesman-Review article. “… Today the population of this northern Idaho community is at least 4,400.”

The Post Falls city clerk said she still thinks of it as a little town, “but it’s not going to be long before we’re not.”

The junior high school was on double-shifts because of overcrowding.

“The prairie has changed a lot since the days when it was a Pony Express depot,” said The S-R. “It is experiencing rapid, and mostly unsewered, housing development and farmland is being chopped into subdivisions and trailer parks.”

This was just the beginning of the city’s astonishing growth. The 2024 U.S. Census estimate showed Post Falls with 45,800 residents, and still expanding.

From 1925: The price of moonshine whiskey plummeted in Spokane during the week, because of “stills operated by foreigners.”

At least, that was the assertion of a “well-known bootlegger” in Spokane. He accused the foreigners of “distilling their liquor but once, and using the cheapest to material in the mash.”

He said an Italian distiller offered him 40 gallons of moonshine for $3.50 per gallon, cheaper than the bootlegger’s cost just to “produce the stuff.”

He said the weather was also a factor. It has “enabled the illicit liquor manufacturers to move their stills out of doors, where they can be secluded in the hills and are less likely to be discovered by officers.”