100 years ago in Spokane: Spokane PD warns footloose revelers on New Year’s

The Spokane Police Department laid down the law for New Year’s Eve.

“All dancing will stop at midnight Saturday night, as the law does not permit the holding of public dances on Sunday,” said the city’s commissioner of public safety. “No privileges will be extended in respect to liquor. Drunks will be arrested, and those found with liquor in their pockets will be booked on liquor charges. It’s going to be a decent, sane New Year’s celebration if the police department can make it so.”

This hard line was a result of some overly raucous public revels in recent years. The 1920 Armistice Day celebration turned into a “rowdy and disgraceful” night of downtown drunkenness.

From the holiday beat: Candles gleamed brightly in the windows of Jewish homes throughout Spokane in observation of Hanukkah.

“The Hanukkah lights and the illumination of the Christmas tree are of common origin,” said Rabbi Julius Liebert. “The custom comes from the Mithraic religion, which worshipped the sun as its god.”

From the court beat: Spokane’s “boy safecracker” – now identified as Samuel Short, 16 – was to be tried as a juvenile for rifling 22 safes in the warehouse district of Spokane.

He had initially given police a false name and said he lived alone in a shack. However, police eventually determined he lived in a home with his father, a carpenter, and used the shack as a place to stash his purloined booty.