100 years ago in Spokane: ‘Kaiser’ trout the terror of the Davenport’s aquarium

A giant Dolly Varden (bull) trout, nicknamed Kaiser Bill, was terrorizing the other inhabitants of the Davenport Hotel’s aquarium.

Kaiser Bill was viciously “defending his self-alotted place in the sun with all the frightfulness in cold murder that marks his namesake,” said the Spokane Daily Chronicle.

His namesake was Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany.

“From the time he got into the tank, he made it clear that the bottom two-thirds of it belonged to him personally,” said a Great Northern railroad agent, who apparently gave the fish to the Davenport. “Whenever another trout drops down casually, the old kaiser runs him up, shy a piece of fin or tail, maybe. We put a couple of goldfish in, and they lasted quick. The kaiser just chewed them up.”

From the war beat: The chairman of the Spokane County War Thrift Committee urged residents to “drive Germany’s silent allies from America.”

Those allies were “waste and extravagance.” Any indulgence in waste and extravagance “takes force from the power America must put into the war to win.”

He said that every citizen should avoid spending a penny for luxuries and unnecessary things, and instead “lend your savings to the government,” in the form of war bonds and Liberty Savings Stamps.