100 years ago in Spokane: A woman was suing an insurance agent over unwanted hugs, which he denied giving her

Florence Skinner was suing George Kauffman in what The Spokesman-Review was calling “the hugging case.”

She alleged not just one hug, but multiple hugs.

Skinner claimed that Kauffman, an insurance agent, enticed her upstairs on the pretense of inspecting the chimney. Instead of examining the chimney, he grabbed her, hugged her and caressed her.

Then he came back a week later, and said he had to inspect the chimney again. He hugged her again.

Then he came back a third time, a week later. Same story.

She was asking $5,000 in damages, but Kauffman refused to settle the suit. He denied hugging her even once, and said she filed the suit only because he tried to collect on a debt.

From the storm beat: A severe windstorm whipped through the region west of Spokane and snapped numerous power poles “as if they were matches,” The Spokesman-Review reported.

Power outages were reported in Odessa and Ritzville. Other outages were reported in the Palouse region and the Tri-Cities. Near Pasco, 20 Western Union poles were blown down.

“This was the worst storm in spots that we have experienced in years,” a spokesman for The Washington Water Power Co. said.

Residents speculated that “cyclonic effects accompanied the storm.”

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1965: Cosmonaut Alexey Leonov, leaving his spacecraft Voskhod 2 for 12 minutes, becomes the first person to walk in space.