100 years ago in Stevens County: Police confiscate 61 cases of whisky in 2 road blockades

Customs agents blockaded a road near the Canadian border at Laurier and stopped a suspicious looking Dodge.

They searched the car and found 31 cases of Canadian and scotch liquor. The two occupants of the car were arrested.

On the same night, authorities in Stevens County blockaded a road near the Palmer railroad siding, about four miles north of Colville. A Hudson car approached and then screeched to a stop when the occupants saw the blockade. They jumped out and disappeared into the dark woods.

Police were unable to find them, but they searched the car and found 30 cases of whiskey. Police believed they knew the identity of one of the fugitives, “a well-known Spokane rum-runner.”

From the anecdote beat: C.E. Wendel won the Chronicle’s Best Anecdote Contest” with a story about a real estate salesman who was trying to sell a reluctant farmer a patch of rocky land.

The salesman told the farmer that the rocks were actually an advantage, because “they absorb the sun’s rays” and keep the soil warm during the night.

But the farmer noticed a man in a nearby field, who was picking up rocks and loading them in a wagon.

“If these rocks are of so much value to the land, why is this man hauling them off?” asked the farmer.

“Ha ha!” replied the salesman. “That man doesn’t own that land. He’s stealing those rocks!”

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1973: John McCain, future U.S. senator, is released after spending five years in a North Vietnamese prisoner of war camp.