This day in history: Four fires west of Spokane suspected to be arson caused; Western states organize exhange program for leading hotel orchestras

From 1975: Four fires were reported west of Spokane between 2:30 and 3 a.m. – the work of a suspected arsonist.

Then, four more brush fires were reported that night, bringing the total to eight.

In one of those fires, a barn and haystack burned to the ground.

Witnesses reported seeing a car near the scenes of the fires shortly before some of the incidents, and investigators were looking for possible connections between the fires.

From 1925: Spokane was about to get a new influx of high-quality dance music.

A new agreement would allow the leading hotel orchestras of California, Washington and Oregon to do an exchange program that would bring them to the Davenport Hotel.

The first would arrive on Oct. 10, 1925, when the “11-piece orchestra of Dwight Johnson opens a Davenport engagement, after coming here from the Multnomah Hotel in Portland.”

To accommodate these orchestras, the Davenport Hotel was planning to enlarge the stage and install “new lighting effects.”

“Restaurant men realize the people desire to entertain themselves,” one of the region’s hotel men said. “Times and methods of entertainment are changing and we find that people desire to gather around a table where they can eat, drink and smoke and listen to good music. Our plan is simply one to satisfy them.”

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

2008: Dow Jones Industrial Average falls 777.68 points, its then-largest single-day point loss, following the bankruptcies of Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual.