This day in history: Pullman mayor warned of decaying town. Judge declined to grant woman a divorce despite extensive testimony of abuse

From 1976: The Spokane Chronicle was “shining a spotlight” on the region’s cities and towns, and this day’s installment was about Pullman.

“We are a company town and the company is education,” said Pullman Mayor Karen Kiessling. “The decisions that affect us are being made in Olympia, not here.”

One of the challenges was a growing student population. Washington State University’s 1976 enrollment was 16,200, up 600 from the year before. It meant an increased demand for city services, but not a corresponding increase in city revenues.

“The quality of life has become a major concern for people here,” said the mayor. “Most people are here because they want to live in a community of a particular size and enjoy the benefits of that size. Growth is not viewed by some as a desirable goal.”

Some in the downtown business community welcomed growth. They were concerned with a different problem: “the threat of a decaying downtown … heightened by the development of a shopping center at Moscow” and a Pullman shopping center on university land.

From 1926: Newspapers of the era covered divorce proceedings extensively and on this day The Spokesman-Review covered a doozy.

Tiny M. Cole told the judge that her husband had called her “an accessory, not a necessity.” He also told her “that I was too old for him and that he would want another wife before I was 40.”

“He would not let me join the tennis club,” she said. “He threw dishes around and knocked my head against the bed. He told me if I wrote to his people about his conduct, it would be the last time.”

And yet the judge ruled “that the testimony did not show grounds for a divorce.”

Her attorneys said they planned to file an amended charge.