100 years ago in Spokane: Silent film star Nell Shipman gets new syndicate based in Minnehaha

Spokane investors organized the Nell Shipman Production Syndicate in the city’s latest effort to establish itself as Hollywood North.

Nell Shipman, an international silent movie star, was already in residence at Spokane’s Minnehaha Park studios, where she and her manager had been negotiating contracts for her upcoming movie, “The Grub Stake.”

Now that the syndicate was formed and the contracts signed, Shipman’s cast was assembling in Los Angeles and preparing to travel to Spokane. They had been “farmed out” to various Hollywood studios while awaiting the closing of the Spokane contracts.

Shipman’s “cast” was not exclusively human. She also had her own “zoo,” consisting of wild animals including bears and cougars. A zoo enclosure was under construction at Minnehaha.

Shipman was famous for making nature movies in the north woods, and “The Grub Stake” would be no different.

Her manager said that “it will be made largely in the big woods and mountains surrounding Spokane.” It would have a cast of 22 people under contract, as well as “large numbers of Spokane people as extras.”

He predicted it would take three months to finish. Two other short subjects were also in the works.

“The Nell Shipman pictures are shown all over the world, and hereafter every one of them will carry the announcement that they were made in Spokane, a tremendous advertising possibility for the city,” said the manager.