100 years ago in Spokane County: 500 dead sheep litter road between Seven, Nine Mile area

Authorities were mystified by the reports of 500 dead sheep littering the road between Seven Mile and Nine Mile north and west of Spokane.

The mystery was cleared up — if not the carcasses — when a sheepman named C. Meyer was arrested in Springdale. He told officers that the sheep were the victims of “loco weed.”

Meyer said that he was herding the sheep from Spokane to Springdale when they got into a patch of poisonous weed near Fairmount Cemetery. Many of the sheep became crazed and many of them drowned themselves in the Spokane River below the cemetery. Others made it all the way to Tum Tum before they died.

Meyer was arrested on charges of failure to bury the carcasses in accordance with the health laws. He was free on bail in Springdale, where he was tending the 200 surviving sheep.

Meyer claimed he gave the dead sheep to Indians to skin, who promised to bury the carcasses.

From the crime beat: The yeggman (safe cracker) who was shot and killed by a Spokane police officer the previous night, was identified as Harry Allen, “one of the most dangerous crooks in the Northwest for at least 13 years.”

He had already served two terms in prison at McNeil Island and another at Deer Lodge, Montana, for crimes including robbing a post office and counterfeiting. He was believed to have headed a gang in Spokane, which had blown several safes.