100 years ago in Spokane: A bumper crop of apples led to a shortage of refrigerated train cars in the Valley

Spokane’s apple industry was facing a crisis because of a shortage or refrigerated freight cars. Growers feared that their harvest, one of the biggest in recent years, would rot due to lack of transport.

Finally, relief was on the way. A total of 3,400 refrigerated rail cars were being sent to the Northwest from the East with the prospect of more to come.

U.S. Sen. Miles Poindexter, from Spokane, had fired off an urgent telegram to the chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission.

“The present crisis demands the full exercise of the powers vested in the commission, to prevent a catastrophe in the Northwest,” the senator said.

Apple growing was a major industry in the Spokane Valley in 1922, but it would soon fade due to competition from Wenatchee and Yakima.

From the Prohibition beat: Ferry County’s reputation as a haven for rum-runners was enhanced when federal Prohibition agents took two bootleggers to the Ferry County jail – and then the Ferry County deputy refused to admit them.

So the federal agents had to drive the two suspects to the Spokane County jail.

The two were arrested 12 miles north of Republic, in possession of 32 sacks full of liquor.

From the park beat: The dahlia season at Manito Park was finished, said park superintendent John W. Duncan, following a night or two of frosts.

But the chrysanthemum season was in full bloom at the park’s greenhouses. Duncan said the greenhouses had 14 varieties of mums in “every color of the rainbow.”