100 years ago in Spokane: President Harding’s visit to brought ‘thousands of people who lined the streets’ to see him

President Warren G. Harding arrived in Spokane for an overnight stay and received the city’s “warmest greeting.”

Miss Spokane (Marguerite Motie Shiel), in her Indian costume, met his train and presented him with the key to the city. He accepted it with kind words and then proceeded to the Davenport Hotel via motorcade.

“Shouts went up from the thousands of people who lined the streets below the Union Station viaduct,” the Spokane Daily Chronicle reported. “… The downtown streets and building were probably never more gaily decorated with the national colors, nearly every flagpole and available building space flaunting its fluttering bunting.”

At the Davenport Hotel, Harding and the First Lady took a brief rest. Harding was scheduled to give a speech later in the evening at the Armory.

From the boxing beat: Another town in the region, Shelby, Montana, was also the center of national attention.

The heavyweight boxing championship bout between Jack Dempsey and Tom Gibbons was scheduled to take place on July 4 in this small town north of Great Falls.

Fight fans had already descended on the town’s tiny business district.

Legendary sportswriter Heywood Broun was on hand as “special representative of The Spokesman-Review,” and he described the surreal experience of holding a huge prize fight in what was essentially the middle of nowhere.

“The fight on the Fourth will be almost wholly a Montana affair,” Broun wrote. “The number of outsiders who have come to Shelby is comparatively small, let’s say 2,500, and the railroads have booked only an insignificant number from distant points.”

While waiting for the big day, a friendly Shelby resident made Broun an offer he couldn’t refuse.

“Come with me and I will run you up to Canada, where the beer is better,” he said. “It’s only 35 miles.”

A raging windstorm put a stop to that plan.

Spokane boxing fans would not have to brave the trip to Shelby. They could gather in the streets below the Chronicle building to hear a punch-by-punch account of the fight. A Chronicle reporter was on hand to send reports directly by wire, which would be read to the crowds gathered below.