100 years ago in Spokane: Police kept busy with Halloween pranksters, vandals

Spokane police were “kept on the jump” all evening long because of Halloween pranks, The Spokesman-Review reported.

Most were of the relatively harmless variety. One woman called to complain that she was holding “a little party and some awful boys came to the back door and stole all my ice cream and cake.”

However, a few pranks were more serious. In one case, a wire was stretched across West Gardner Street, at windshield height, between two telephone poles. Fortunately a motorist caught sight of the wire just in time to avoid breaking his windshield, or worse. He took the wire down.

On West 10th Avenue, some pranksters took most of the wood from a resident’s woodpile and stacked it up on the streetcar tracks. Also, a number of vacant houses were vandalized.

“Windows were broken, boards were carried off and small sheds were turned over,” said The Spokesman-Review.

In one case a group of “about 15 boys, about 17 years old, loaded into a Ford” and drove around the city making quick attacks on fences and other property, and then making quicker getaways. Police never did catch up with them.

Elsewhere, several “youth malefactors were caught redhanded” and in most cases were sternly reprimanded and released.

Despite this, both papers declared it a quiet Halloween.

From the booster beat: A Chicago salesman spoke to the Spokane Stockmen’s Club and suggested the following new slogan for Spokane: “Do It In Spokane.”