100 years ago today in Spokane: Explosion blows off oven door at biscuit bakery

A crashing explosion rocked downtown Spokane at 3 a.m., and the phone immediately rang at the police station.

“The safe at the Tru-Blu Biscuit Company has been broken open!” shouted the company’s night watchman.

A bulletin was issued for all available officers, who immediately armed themselves with sawed-off shotguns to confront a gang of safecrackers.

“With guns leveled,” they raced into the company office – only to find the safe intact and nary a yeggman (safecracker) in evidence.

Instead, they found a mess in the baking room. The bakers had left the gas on in the oven overnight. It ignited and blew the heavy oven door all the way across the room, breaking most of the windows in the place. The night watchman had apparently jumped to conclusions.

“It was a downcast lot of city patrolmen who solemnly placed the unused shotguns back in their racks, and again started on the monotonous duty of patrolling their beats,” said the Spokane Daily Chronicle.

From the Prohibition beat: A federal Prohibition agent was likely to go on trial in Spokane for the shooting of Ernest C. Emley (previously rendered as Emily) during a liquor bust near Keller.

The father of Emley, an ex-serviceman, was asking for a change of venue from the state courts of Ferry County to the federal court in Spokane.

The details of the case were still in dispute. Agents said that Emley had a load of whiskey in his car, refused to stop when ordered to and nearly ran them down. What was not in dispute was that the agents opened fire and killed Emley.