100 years ago in Spokane: After a juvenile offender he’d been tracking disappeared, a police officer may have been more concerned about something else that was missing

Spokane police officer Wilford Sensney was in Yakima searching for an escaped juvenile offender – and also for his own pants.

Sensney was escorting Donald Stedman, 16, by train to the Boys Training School (a reform school) at Chehalis. When they retired for the night in the sleeper car, the officer cleverly hid the boy’s clothes, as a deterrent to any attempted escape. Unfortunately, Sensney failed to conceal his own clothes.

When the officer awoke in the morning, he reached for his trousers and – found nothing. His pants were gone, his shoes were gone and $3.20 in cash was gone. The boy was also gone.

He believed that the boy had somehow exited the train between Yakima and Toppenish. Yakima police were now helping search for the boy. Because of his conspicuous “borrowed attire,” authorities were confident that they would capture him quickly.

Stedman had originally gotten into trouble in Spokane over a joyride and a rumble at the Canton Cafe.

From the medical beat: Herbert Wattlin, 14, arrived at the city’s emergency hospital with an unusual problem.

“I can’t get a straw out of my ear,” Herbert said.

The “prickly thing got into his sound box while sleeping in a straw stack,” The Spokesman-Review reported.

The offending straw was duly extracted.

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1958: Charles de Gaulle is elected premier of France.