100 years ago in Spokane: Buzz surrounded the upcoming debut of a movie filmed in the region

Nell Shipman’s movie, “The Grub Stake,” was sold to distributors in New York for $600,000, and scheduled for release in early 1923.

The movie was filmed at Spokane’s Minnehaha studios and on location around Priest Lake. The sale guaranteed a sizable profit. But the production had not been without setbacks.

“With the production of the picture three-fourths completed, the financing organization failed to complete its backing and the picture rights were forfeited,” the Spokane Daily Chronicle wrote.

Shipman’s company then re-financed the film, with backing from Spokane investors.

Meanwhile, Shipman was planning to start work on two more feature films and several shorter “animal pictures.” Shipman was famous for keeping a menagerie of wild animals at her winter compound at Priest Lake.

From the highway beat: King County interests proposed a new statewide initiative: paving the Sunset Highway all the way from Seattle to Spokane.

The editorial page of the Spokane Daily Chronicle applauded that idea, but didn’t believe it was absolutely necessary.

“Much of the North Central highway between Spokane and the Columbia River is practically as serviceable in its present state as paving would be,” an editorial said. “Many drivers prefer a hard, dependable gravel surface to pavement.”

The old Sunset Highway route from Seattle crossed the Cascades at Snoqualmie Pass, but then jogged north to Wenatchee, where it crossed the Columbia River and then generally followed the route of today’s U.S. 2.