100 years ago in Spokane: Downtown parking becomes problem

So many people were now driving autos in Spokane that parking was a serious downtown problem.

The city was trying to help solve it by opening up the space under the elevated train tracks as a city parking lot.

The Spokesman-Review ran a photo of this new lot with a headline saying, “Municipal Parking Grounds in Heart of City Prove Valuable to Motorists.”

It had space for several hundred cars. A caption noted that this would help with the city’s congestion – but it actually accommodated only “a comparative few” of the cars jamming downtown.

From the college beat: The Northwest Business College, at 317 S. Howard St., took out a full-page ad to tout its courses in shorthand, bookkeeping and stenography.

One of its students was quoted as saying that the college enabled him to go from being a common laborer to a bookkeeper “in one of the finest banks of our town.”

The college also touted the fact that the University of Washington had approved accreditation for the school for all commercial subjects.

“This makes our grades good in practically every school in the country,” the ad said.

The ad further pointed out that they could assist out-of-town students in finding a place to live in nearby boarding houses. Also, “there is a very large demand for girls to work in private homes for their room and board – any girl who wants to make her living expenses in this way can easily do so.”

On this day

(From Associated Press)

1972: The Palestinian group Black September attacked the Israeli Olympic delegation at the Munich Games, killing 11 Israelis and a police officer. German forces killed five of the gunmen.