100 years ago in the Northwest: Snow in July? It was hard to believe then, too

Today’s sweltering Northwest residents may be astonished at this headline, from The Spokesman-Review on July 3, 1921: SNOW AND COLD VISIT THE NORTHWEST – Coeur d’Alenes, Walla Walla, Montana Shivering.”

A correspondent in Wallace, Idaho, reported residents woke up to find snow-clad hills all around them. The Blue Mountains near Walla Walla were also white, “extending well down the sides of the mountains.”

Spokane’s low temperature that night was 48 degrees and the high was 66.

From the accident beat: The fireworks season got off to a somber start when a 15-month-old boy in Avery, Idaho, died of phosphorus poisoning after he ate an unexploded firecracker.

The toddler followed some other children out onto the lawn at Avery to watch them shoot off firecrackers and “torpedoes.” His mother found him with parts of a firecracker smeared on his face.

He was treated by a doctor and thought to be out of danger. But the next day he began to show alarming symptoms and was rushed to a Spokane hospital, where he died.

From the bank robbery beat: Spokane police believed they had found one of the perpetrators of the daring Addy bank robbery.

They arrested Mike Foley, 39, a miner, on a liquor charge. They soon discovered that Foley was an alias for Mac McKenzie, an escapee from the Nevada State Penitentiary.

The Addy bank cashier was on the way to Spokane to see if he could identify Foley as the man known as “Doc,” who forced the cashier to open the bank.