100 years ago in Spokane: Streetcar merger hits a snag

A plan to merge Spokane’s two streetcar companies hit some snags during closed-door meetings between the two companies and the city.

The president of the Washington Water Power Co. said any of the rumors about the plan were no more than “a guess.”

The public was especially interested in one key detail: the price of a streetcar fare. City officials were adamant about a 6-cent fare, but rumors said the possibilities ranged from five cents to eight cents.

From the movie beat: Cast members of Nell Shipman’s feature, “The Grub Stake,” were en route to Spokane from Los Angeles, including several silent movie names. Lillian Leighton, for instance, had just appeared in a movie with Gloria Swanson. Shipman was planning to whisk them off immediately to the Pend Oreille country, where a number of the outdoor shots would be filmed.

From the hospital beat: There was nothing personal about the Shriners’ board’s rejection of $100,000 from the John A. Finch estate.

The estate had proposed the donation in exchange for naming the new Spokane hospital the Finch Memorial Shrine Hospital.

The board had previously been swamped nationally with offers of donations tied to naming rights. So it had already passed a general resolution rejecting any offers “that meant naming the hospital after somebody.”

Also on this date

(From Associated Press)

1893: Inventor Nikola Tesla first publicly demonstrated radio during a meeting of the National Electric Light Association in St. Louis by transmitting electromagnetic energy without wires.