100 years ago: Washington Gov. Ernest Lister dies after long illness

The state was mourning the death of Washington Gov. Ernest Lister, who died of heart disease.

Lieutenant Governor Louis F. Hart was sworn in as governor immediately upon Lister’s death.

Hart ordered a month of mourning and a public holiday on the day of the funeral, which was to be June 15, 1919.

Lister’s death was hardly a surprise. He had been seriously ill for six months. He had named Hart as acting governor in February.

From the political beat: Two area senators – Sen. Miles Poindexter of Washington and Senator William Borah of Idaho – were leading the national drive to reject President Woodrow Wilson’s League of Nations proposal. The two senators planned an anti-League campaign that would cover the entire country.

They believed the League – roughly a precursor to the United Nations – would compromise the sovereignty of U.S. and entangle it in alliances that would lead to war.

The two senators and the anti-League forces would eventually prevail. The Senate failed to ratify the treaty.

From the aviation beat: A crowd at the Parkwater Aviation Field cheered both “Miss Spokane,” the airplane, and Miss Spokane, the beauty queen.

Miss Marguerite Motie, the original Miss Spokane, christened the Northwest Aircraft Corp.’s first Spokane-made plane, as the “Miss Spokane.” Motie flung a bouquet of flowers into the airplane’s whirling propellors, and then pilot Clyde Pangborn lifted off for a flying demonstration.

“This is the beginning of what we hope will be a great industry in a short time,” said one of the company’s officers. “… We hope to make Spokane one of the flying manufacturing centers of the country.”