This day in history: New law legalizing drunkenness in public forced Spokane County to find alternative to county jail

From 1974: Edgecliff Hospital was selected as the site of the new Spokane County Detoxification Center.

Why did the county need a new detox center?

A new law taking effect in 1975 decreed that “being intoxicated in public is no longer a crime.”

Instead of sending drunks to the county jail, police would now be required to take them to a detoxification center.

The new program was considered a “nonmedical dryout,” although a full-time registered nurse would be on hand.

Edgecliff’s agreement solved one problem, but others remained. Edgecliff, which was built by Spokane County as a sanitarium for tuberculosis patients, was a long way from downtown at 511 S. Park Road. Police predicted that transportation costs would be high.

From 1924: Proponents of the Columbia Basin irrigation scheme made a startling new proposal: Using Lake Coeur d’Alene as a gigantic reservoir of irrigation water.

Under this plan, the water would then be directed down the Spokane River into a proposed tunnel under Spokane’s Cannon Hill, and then directed via miles of canals and tunnels to the arid center of Washington.

This scheme was only slightly more audacious than a similar, long-proposed plan, which would transfer water from the Pend Oreille River via canals and tunnels down through Spokane and onward to the west.

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1998: House of Representatives votes to impeach President Bill Clinton over the Lewinsky scandal.