This day in history: Long before double-deckers in Spokane, getting students to and from Cheney was in ‘crisis’

From 1975: A “commuter crisis” was brewing at Eastern Washington State College (now Eastern Washington University) because of a huge increase in the “Magic Bus” fares.

“Magic Bus” was the name for Spokane Transit’s bus service between Spokane and Cheney. The Associated Students group at the college subsidized the service in 1974 to the tune of $17,000, covering almost all of the costs. Now, transit officials said their service would cost $40,000.

Associated Students president Tom Hampson said his group was “rather shell-shocked” by the increase.

“It would be impossible for the students’ association to subsidize the entire cost of the service this year,” Hampson said. Tom Hampson, by the way, is better known today as Thomas Hampson, international opera star.

Fast-forward to the present, and the Spokane Transit Authority debuted a new fleet of double-decker buses to transport riders to and from Cheney last week.

From 1925: Spokane was seeking to host a huge Native American celebration, with 27 tribes, on Oct. 30 and 31. The head of the city’s Halloween committee said he wanted to see “a feather in the hat of every boy and girl in Spokane,” to be worn the week before the celebration.

Where would all of those feathers come from?

“It shouldn’t be much of a job to get 250,000 feathers with the duck shooting so good,” he said.

He was asking all duck hunters to leave their feathers at the Grimmer Transfer Co. for distribution.

The committee had already announced an ambitious plan to build a “permanent log building” in the form of a tepee as the headquarters for the Indian gathering.