100 years ago in North Idaho: Shots were fired in the search for the Sandpoint murder suspects, and one of them may have even been hit

The massive manhunt for two murder suspects continued in the mountains around Sandpoint, and a minister even took a pot shot at one of them.

Posse members Rev. C.B. Martin and Lon Arnett were walking side by side “when they espied the bandit on the shoulder of a hill.”

“He was moving cautiously through the timber, dodging from tree to tree, in an effort to keep under cover,” a Sandpoint correspondent reported.

The minister and his friend shot at the man simultaneously. They believed they might have wounded the man because, when bloodhounds were set loose on the trail, they found a large pool of blood on the ground, where they assumed the suspect had rested.

Yet as of the afternoon, they still had not tracked either of the bandits down. Officials were confident, however, that the cordon was drawing tighter around the two men. They were wanted for robbing a Sandpoint pool hall and murdering the proprietor.

From the disaster beat: After a fire nearly destroyed the North Idaho mining town of Burke, authorities were pondering whether Burke should be abandoned altogether as a residential town and its populace moved to Wallace.

Burke was in a deep canyon and especially vulnerable to fires and blizzards. A railroad ran from Wallace to Burke, and miners could commute from Wallace to Burke by train under this proposal.

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1969: Neil Armstrong becomes the first person to step on the moon.