This day in history: Ranchers found guilty of transporting wolf’s body. Spokane Daily Chronicle searched for “Baby Spokane”

From 1976: Two ranchers were found guilty on one count in a wolf-shooting case in Spokane’s federal courtroom, but not guilty on a second, more serious, count.

They were found guilty of “transporting in foreign commerce a wild animal in violation of state law” for taking a wolf carcass to a British Columbia taxidermist.

They were found not guilty of hunting from an airplane. The prosecution had accused them of shooting the wolf from a small plane near Mansfield, Washington.

“As far as we’re concerned, we won,” said their defense attorney.

The dead wolf was one of the first seen in Washington for decades.

Expert witnesses in the trial gave different opinions on if the animal was part dog.

From 1926: The Spokane Chronicle’s Baby Spokane contest was proving to be smash success. A dozen of the cutest entrants graced the front page.

Hundreds of proud parents had entered their babies in this contest, intended to “find the most attractive baby in Spokane.” The winner would be crowned Baby Spokane.

This wasn’t the Chronicle’s only dubious-sounding contest. The paper was also running a contest in which readers were invited to answer the question: “What kind of a wife will the modern girl make?”

The Chronicle urged readers to write to Vivian (an apparently fictitious person) who asked, “Will the lovable, dancing girl of today, who laughs at love and laughs at conventions, and rouges her lips and pencils her eyebrows and openly says what’s the use of anything but a good time when you’re young, make as true a wife as her sister of yesterday?”

“Vivian” said she wanted to know “because I’m just that sort of girl and I want to know what the future holds for me.”

The best letter in response would win a $10 prize.