Jim Kershner’s This day in history

From our archives, 75 years ago

Pre-Halloween vandalism was rife in Spokane, despite police threats of arrest and a 9 p.m. curfew for all children.

Two boys smashed a downtown store’s display window and ran off. A number of fires were set in neighborhoods all over the city. One woodshed burned down.

Firefighting was complicated by the fact that pranksters pulled the handles of fire alarm boxes all over the city.

Also, “police telephones were busy with calls from householders who told of young celebrants invading residential districts.”

And this all happened on the night before Halloween. (See Monday’s column for an account of more Halloween mayhem.)

From the airline beat: The four passengers on a Chicago-to-Seattle Northwest Airlines flight had their own Halloween scare in 1935. The plane stopped at Helena and was on its way to the next stop in Spokane when the pilot was unable to locate the “guiding radio beam.” The plane became lost and strayed far off course.

It was almost out of fuel when the pilot made a forced landing in an area of rough open ground.

The landing was bumpy, but none of the passengers was injured. As it turned out, the plane was near Nelson, B.C.