100 years ago in Spokane: Nine local residents were aboard a ship that wrecked off the California coast

Nine Spokane residents had been aboard the steamship Alaska when it was wrecked off the California coast; eight were rescued, but early reports indicated that one, an 18-year-old man, was missing.

Kenneth F. Bonnewell, had been on his way to Stanford University to begin his freshman year. His father told The Spokesman-Review that he had searched all of the lists of survivors but had yet to see his son’s name.

Fear turned to joy when his parents finally had some “mighty good news.”

They received a wire from their son in which he said he had been rescued after five hours in the water.

A young Walla Walla girl, however, was still among the missing.

Reports out of Eureka, California, indicated 35 passengers and 12 crew members were still missing after the ship crashed into the rocks in dense fog. One of the four lifeboats capsized.

There were 166 survivors.

From the fair beat: All gambling games were banned at the upcoming Spokane Interstate Fair for 1921. This action was taken to “stamp out the evil which existed last year.”

“Owing to the fact that so many working people are out of work and money is hard to get, we do not feel that it is right to allow these things to operate,” the city’s commissioner of public safety said.

From the weather beat: Spokane’s highest temperature of the year was recorded when the thermometer hit 94.8. The summer’s previous high had been 94.1.

Also on this date

From the Associated Press

1974: President Richard Nixon, facing damaging new revelations in the Watergate scandal, announced he would resign the following day.