100 years ago in Spokane: After 1919 flu pandemic, theater attendance skyrockets in Spokane

People in Spokane loved their theaters – all 13 of them.

The city’s theater managers released statistics showing that attendance totaled 5.8 million for 1920. This total included vaudeville theaters, stock theaters (plays) and movie theaters.

The vaudeville theaters, led by the Pantages and Hippodrome, were the most popular. However, movies were making inroads with most of the major movie houses gaining in popularity.

Overall, Spokane’s theater attendance was up by nearly a million over 1919, for reasons that we can relate to 100 years later. Many theaters had been shut down for months in 1919 during the flu epidemic, but there were no shutdowns in 1920.

From the court beat: W.J. Van Skike, the driver accused of running down an aged widow and dragging her for 13 blocks through the streets of Spokane, was released on $5,000 bond while he awaited trial on manslaughter charges.

He claimed at the time he had no idea that he had struck her, or that she had ended up beneath his auto, shouting for him to stop.

The trial was scheduled in three weeks. The incident sparked outrage through the city.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1612: Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei observed the planet Neptune but mistook it for a star. (Neptune wasn’t officially discovered until 1846 by Johann Gottfried Galle.)

1945: Congress officially recognized the Pledge of Allegiance.

1981: Elizabeth Jordan Carr, the first American “test-tube” baby, was born in Norfolk, Virginia.