100 years ago in Spokane: The city became another flop for ‘Hollywood North’ enthusiasts, and the KKK talk at a Methodist church was well-attended

Another attempt to turn Spokane into Hollywood North ended in failure.

Lionel Dobell had rented the movie studios at Spokane’s Minnehaha Park and had begun to make a Western thriller.

Yet a walk through the studio grounds found “one teepee alone, deserted by its former occupants on their disheartened trudge to homes on the Spokane Indian reservation.”

The “huge studio buildings” were sitting vacant. Dobell “had departed for other climes, perhaps Los Angeles, it seems.”

The Playter Studios, which owned the compound, had rented it to Dobell, but reported that he was “no longer tenanting at the property.”

A Playter representative said the studio would probably close for the winter unless some other renter showed up.

From the Klan beat: About 350 people showed up at a Ku Klux Klan lecture at Spokane’s Central Methodist Church.

“The Klan has no apologies to offer,” said former Grand Dragon P.C. Curtis of Vancouver, Washington. “… I come to talk about the most discussed, most misrepresented, most misunderstood organization in America today.”

He said the Klan was organized on four basis principles: “the desirability of Protestant Christian faith, the policy of America for Americans, the desirability of white supremacy, and the protection of American women.”

The crowd “frequently applauded the speaker.”

Also on this date

(From onthisday.com)

1752: Pennsylvania’s new State House bell (aka the Liberty Bell) arrives in Philadelphia from London.