100 years ago in Spokane: Two young women walked home to Spokane from UW, calling the trek a ‘ramble through the wilds’

Gracie Sillman and Mamie Thompson “pedestrianized” their way home to Spokane from the University of Washington.

That is, they walked.

It took them 14 days, including a few days visiting friends along the way.

A month before the term ended, they had decided they wanted to experience a “ramble through the wilds.” They spent a few weeks doing practice hikes and obtaining gear. Then they embarked on their trek from Seattle.

“The hardest thing about being a girl hiker in Washington, outside of sore feet, is retaining enough courage to resist lifts from passing motorists, the young women say,” The Spokesman-Review wrote. “They refused 70 rides … At one time, they took to the railroad tracks just to avoid the incessant, ‘Hi, there! Let me give you a lift.’”

They experienced a number of challenges, including rain in the Cascades, and a long slog up Snoqualmie Pass.

“All I can say about hiking, is that it is real work,” Thompson said . “You can’t throw in the clutch and coast along down the hills.”

From the labor beat: Striking railroad shop workers in Spokane refused to go back to work, even though management said the strikers had now lost their seniority rights.

The railroad companies had issued a deadline of 3 p.m. for the strikers to return to work.

“At 3 o’clock, the final time limit, the strikers had not appeared nor had they sent any word to the office,” the Spokane Daily Chronicle wrote.

From the hygiene beat: The Palace Restaurant was fined $50 for adding a few extras to the soup kettle: Chicken feathers and “chicken feet with dirty toes.”

The health inspector also found “some papers and string and other materials.”

“This is terrible and you must clean up,” the judge said, in levying the fine.