100 years ago in Spokane: ‘Tiger’ Johnson killed in escape attempt

Fred “Tiger” Johnson, one of Spokane’s most notorious criminals, made another – and final – escape attempt.

Johnson was shot dead by guards while trying to escape from the State Penitentiary at Walla Walla.

He was infamous in Spokane as the man who had escaped from the Spokane County Courthouse and ran to the Spokane River and jumped in. He was shot midstream and recaptured.

Yet his criminal career started far before that incident, and was “one of the blackest ever recorded,” said the Spokane Daily Chronicle.

Johnson, whose real name was apparently Coynt, killed a man in Alaska, another in California, and attempted to murder numerous guards, including one at the Spokane County Courthouse. He had already served a term at McNeil Island.

From the Wobbly beat: Spokane police believe they thwarted a Wobbly plan for a general strike of miners, loggers and all other laborers in the Northwest.

They arrested W.B. Hall, a Wobbly organizer, who told police that he had just arrived from Chicago, where the Wobbly leadership had been convicted of conspiracy in a sensational trial. Hall said he was trying to organize a strike that would “paralyze industry in an effort to force the government to release the convicted Chicago Wobblies.”

Hall readily admitted he was opposed to the war and that he was “just as guilty of conspiracy as his companions” in Chicago.