USA > Washington > Spokane County > Spokane > History of the city of Spokane and Spokane County, Washington : from its earliest settlement to the present time, Volume I > Part 50
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SPOKANE AND THE INLAND EMPIRE
about mining, his experience is worth recording. He was set to work in driving the prospect tunnel which had been run as crooked as a worm fence. At last, ac- cidentally making an angle in the tunnel, he encountered the lead. He did not know what he had discovered, but thought the formation of no value and quit work. He left for Gem, where he met Mr. Day, He said to Mr. Day:
"'I have encountered a formation which appears very much like white ashes. and there is no use of doing any further work, as the property is not worth any- thing.
"Mr Day immediately went to the property and what met his view astounded him. It was the Herenles vein.
"In the spring of 1896 S. Markwell and L. W. Hutton became interested in the property, giving $1.750 in cash and signing a contract with Mr. Reeves that when the property paid $2,000 in dividends they were each to pay Mr. Reeves $250. It is needless to say this money has been paid. Mr. Markwell and sons were the owners of a milk ranch west of the city. They came here from California in 1890. Mr. Hutton was a railroad engineer, coming from California. At the time he became interested, along with his wife, Mrs. May Arkwright Hutton, he had the Canyon run on the railway. At the time of the labor troubles he was forced to pull the men to Wardner at the time the mill was blown up. That was about the last he worked for the Northern Pacific.
"Damian Cardoner, a native of Spain, and the owner of a large mercantile store in Burke, became interested in the property in 1898 for $600. Other owners are H. F. Samuels, an attorney, and F. M. Rothrock, who was at one time a butcher. having an extensive meat business in Wallace. They each paid $3,000 for their interest, going in as late as 1899."
The Hereules has done its full share of contributing to the upbuilding of Spokane. Its most notable monuments here are the Paulsen and Hutton buildings.
It paid $375,318 profit in 1905, and $787,531 in 1906. By July, 1909, it had a dividend record of $3,600,000, and to date it has distributed about $5,000,000 among its fortunate owners.
A decade ago Charles Sweeny of Spokane became a dominant influence in the Coeur d'Alenes. For twenty years or more Sweeny had been drifting around over the Pacific coast, a veritable soldier of fortune. He came to Spokane in the early '80s and ran a general merchandise store. With F. Rockwood Moore he opened the Last Chance mine near Wardner in 1886, but profited little from the carlier fortunes of the camp. The panie of 1893 left him pretty well stranded, but the opening up of Rossland camp in 1895 gave him a little start, and back he went to the Coeur d'Alenes. With F. Lewis Clark, who had been receiver of the First National bank of Spokane. Sweeny acquired control of the old Last Chance, one of the assets of the broken bank, and a sharp advance in the price of lead put him well along on the high road to fortune. They organized the Empire State-Idaho Mining & Development company in 1898, and in 1903 merged it into the greater corporation which now owns a large part of the producing area of the Coeur d'Alenes- the Federal Mining & Smelting company. In August, that year, the Sweeny interests bought the Standard and Mammoth mines from the Finch & Campbell syndicate and incorporated the Federal, with $30.000,000 of capital stock, of which $20,000,000 was issued. They acquired the Puget Sound
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SPOKANE AND THIE INLAND EMPIRE
Rednetion company's smelter at Everett and the Monte Cristo mine, a property which long had been an elephant on the hands of the Rockefellers, and which con- tinues an elephant to the present day. The Federal's first board of directors com- prised John T. Gates, George Gould, John D. Rockefeller, Charles Sweeny, Edwin Packard, Richard Wilson, John A. Finehi, George W. Young. C. D. Warren, E. J. Barney, Peter Bradley and Horaee J. Knowles. Sweeny was made president. His profits in this flotation ran into the millions, and he invested heavily in Spokane business properties, and acquired control of the Exchange National bank. Later he gradually disposed of a majority of his Spokane interests, including his stock in the bank.
DIVIDEND RECORD OF COEUR D'ALENES
Bunker Hill & Sullivan
$11,121,000
Standard-Mammoth
8,500,000
Hereules
3.600.000
Heela
1,810,000
Morning
2,000,000
Last Chance
4,500.000
Snecess
650,000
Snow Storm
780.000
Tiger-Poorman
1,250,000
Frisco
1,225,000
Gem
500.000
Silver King
250,000
Sierra Nevada
225.000
Pittsburg Lead
90,000
Total to July, 1909
$36.501,000
A number of other companies have paid dividends in smaller amounts, but the exact figures were not available to the Coeur d'Alene Mine Makers' association of Wallaee. Dividends paid sinee 1909 have carried the total beyond $10,000,000.
Production of the Coeur d'Alenes from 1884 up to January 1, 1909
Year
Lead in Short Tons
Value of Lead
Silver, fine Ozs.
Value Silver
Gold. Ounces
Value Gold
Copper, Pounds
Value Copper
Zine. Pounds
Value Zine
Total Value Metal Products
1881.
12,500 $
258.375
1-85.
18.220
376,607
376,607
1856
1,500 8
138.300
116.246 8
115,664
8.823
182.371
136,335
1-87.
5.980
538.200
340.000
332.520
7,367
152.276
1.022.996
1858.
8,000
705.600
554.000
520.760
10,250
211.867
1,438.227
1859.
17,500
1.333.500
1,095.265
1,025,168
8,433
171.310.
2.532.987
1890.
27,500
2.392.500
1.499.663
1.574,646
8.000
165.360
1,132,50-
1891.
33.000
2.857.800
1,825,765
1.813, 856
10.000
206.700
-1.868.356
1892.
27,889
2.266.094
1,195,904
1.045.220
11.000
227,370
3.538,684
1893.
29.563
2.421.166
1.963,561
1,529,614
14.748
304,841
4.258,621
1891.
30.000
1.968.000
2.343.314
1.4-5,661
17.531
362.365
3,618.026
1895.
31,000
2.008.500
2,171,800
1,626,115
18.139
381,13-1
4.016,049
1896.
37.250
2,212,650
3.163.657
2.132,304
17.369
359,017
-1,703,971
1×97.
57.777
1.159.944 3.756,212
2.264,996
16.404
339,070
6,764,010
1895.
56,339
1.225,425 3.521.982
2,070,925
13.011
268,937
6.565,287
1599.
50,006
4.440,533, 2,737.218
1.645.068
8,602
177.803
6,263, 401
1900.
81,535
7.207.694
5.261.417
3,262.078
5.751
118,935
10,588,707
1901.
63,953
6.026.492
4,339,296
2.603.577
4,915
101,593
8.731,662
1902.
74,739
6,091.228
5.033,928
2.657.914
1.761
98,110
8,847,552
1903.
103.691
8.772,258
5.471,620
2.954.674
7,651
158,146
11.885.078
1901.
107.560
9.271.672
6.1-11,426
3,512.895
7.000
144,960
2.000.000 8 280.000
13,209,257
1905.
126,994
11.937,163
7.257,634
1,279,982
2.750
56.892
5.805.000
893,389
80,000 $
4.704
17.272,380
1906.
125.825
11.243,402
7.903.487
5,251.867
3.211
67,060
6.856.321
1.236.699
1.400,000
86.660
20.885.688
1907.
114.965
12.232.233
7.317.962
1,780,092
3.435
71,001
7.134.721 1,474.034
9.071,836
527,074
19.081.434
1908.
102,753
8,631.258
6.531,890
3.151.451
4.105
84,850
8,990.306
1,188.518'
13.356.078
Total
1.320.269 $116.084,212 81.812, 747 $52.027.047 243,312 85,050,830 30.786.351 $5.072.640 10.559, 836 $ 618, 438 8178.853.268
-
1
Considerable antimony was produced in 1906-7-8. Exact figures not at hand. Shortage in production for 1908 due to fact that big operators curtailed output, expecting to make larger profits at better metal prices.
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SPOKANE AND THE INLAND EMPIRE
y. 258.375
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SPOKANE AND THE INLAND EMPIRE
The Murray Sun of February, 1887, an excellent authority on Coeur d'Alene history, contained the following item:
"The body of F. M. Davis, known to every one in the Coeur d'Alenes as 'Dream Davis,' has been discovered. Hc disappeared from Portland about two months ago. His body was identified, beyond doubt, in Los Angeles, California. He had spent all his money and committed suicide. Davis was not a miner; he was a man of the Gospel in his day. When the Coeur d'Alene excitement broke ont in 1883 it preyed upon his mind and his vision, as he termed it, directed him to Dream Guleb. He laid down the Bible and the plow in the Palouse country and came up to the eamp to realize his dream. Whether by accident or otherwise, he struek it and during the summer of 188t made considerable money and in the fall sold out an interest in his ground. He cleared up about $10,000.00 and re- turned to the Palouse region. He afterwards bought a farm at Monmouth, Ore- gon."
Davis contended that in his dream or vision, which came to him three nights snecessively, he saw with vivid elearness a lonely guleh in the Coeur d'Alene moun- tains and a voice declared that in this guleh lay a store of golden wealth. Aeting on this revelation, he went to the Coeur d'Alenes, noted and followed certain land-marks as he had seen them in his dream and found the guleh exactly as it had appeared in his vision.
CHAPTER XL HOW CHENEY CAPTURED THE COUNTY SEAT
BY E. E. PERRY
S POKANE insurgency developed in 1879 and J. N. Glover, who still lives in Spokane, was probably the original in that line. He and the several others that then constituted the population of Spokane Falls began to promulgate the doctrine that there was room for another county in eastern Washington.
Mr. Glover made the long trip from Spokane to Olympia in that year and rea- soned with the legislature. It was something of a session, for nobody on the West Side could see the need of a new county in castern Washington. They dis- cussed it with Glover in Doane's old oyster house over pan roasts. They had liquid refreshments, after that they took cigars. These things cost money in pioneer days. Glover knows. He paid for them. He got back to Spokane perplexed with the mystery of how he would obtain sufficient salt pork for the coming win- ter, but he had Spokane county legally recreated with the county seat temporarily established at Spokane Falls. Where it would permanently be was left to the voters.
Several settlers, then present, were personally interested in secing that county scat located at Spokane Falls, because they had come to stay and their future unrolled in the form of the valley, rocks and hills hereabout. Glover was pro- nounced in this opinion and he was supported by A. M. Cannon, J. J. Browne, Judge L. B. Nash, Col. D. P. Jenkins, Samuel Hyde and one or two others.
Against this bulwark the recently arrived town of Cheney hurled its claim. Cheney was favored of the Northern Pacific railroad; was, in fact, christened for one of the Northern Pacific directors, and in one way and another developed omin- ous symptoms. Also it had its friends out round in the remote bunch-grass. M. M. Cowley lived up at Cowley's Bridge then and was a Cheney partisan.
The election was held in November, 1880, without unusual casualties and the following officers elected: Michael Sullivan, sheriff; Samuel Hyde. prosecuting attorney : A. M. Cannon, treasurer; W. H. Bishop, auditor; Avery A. Smith, pro- hate judge; Jerry Rockford, surveyor; Thomas Jennings. John Roberts and a man named Bacon, commissioners. The county seat location was held to be in doubt. The vote was canvassed in Spokane, of course, and a very painstaking canvassing board it was. On their first count the returns showed that Cheney had won by fourteen majority. But grave irregularities immediately developed in the ballot- ing. In one precinct, the judge, lacking anybody else handy to do the job, swore
395
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SPOKANE AND THE INLAND EMPIRE
himself in. In another the polling officers had used longhand where they could have used figures, and in still another they used figures where they should have used longhand. These were errors that required much conscientious industry to rectify, but the work was done and when the total count had been officially read- justed. it appeared that Spokane had won by a majority of two or three.
Cheney displayed symptoms of petulant distrust and went into the territorial court with a complaint that still retains vigor of language. Preliminary to this they retained John B. Allen and Thomas H. Caton, two pioneer attorneys. Col. Jenkins, J. J. Browne and Judge L. B. Nash represented the injured and aston- ished town of Spokane Falls.
Circuit Judge Wingard heard the evidence and argument with men who car- ried hardware in their clothes filling the courtroom, and he concluded it might be well to have a recount. He omitted specifying a date for this.
Spokane submitted to the verdict with an air of patience which was not at all contagious, so far as Cheney folks were concerned. They were willing to rest their case on a recount, but they desired something definite in regard to the time of counting. a matter that appeared to worry Spokane Falls people not a bit. They had faith in the future.
Still Spokane Falls possessed the records and boasted a courthouse in the shape of a frame building at the corner of Main and Howard.
Diek Wright married Miss Piper and Spokane went to the wedding dance. The rigorous exertions of the campaign were over and social relaxation prevailed. A lone night watchman guarded the town, the lights beamed from the windows and the dance went on to the alluring eroon of the fiddle.
W. H. Bishop, the auditor, and now bailiff in Judge Huneke's court. is a man of excellently preserved intelligence. His memory ranges back over thirty-six years of residence in this part of Washington. There is no more accurate recollection of the events of that period than his. And yet. Bishop cannot recall how it hap- pened that he was on duty in the auditor's office that night at midnight, instead of being at the dance. The county was new and probably there was a great deal of extra work to be done on the books. Bishop was young and ambitious and also new to politics. At any rate he was on the job and by midnight he had the elee- tion returns all tabulated. All that was needed to make them official was the signa- tures of the auditor. probate judge and a justice of peace, to be attached when the ballot count was settled. of course.
In those days a deep guleh ran from where the Inland Empire Station now is to a point about where the Old National skyscraper easts its shadow across the townsite. A trail ran across the gulch toward the present site of the Hyde Build- ing. This little matter of topography. is important. The trail was unnoticeable in the dark.
The county clock's hour hand was nearing one o'clock and Bishop might have been justified in seeking the livelier diversions of the wedding dance, but he con- scientiously stuck to his post. Perhaps he had a premonition. He became almost convinced of it when he detected the muthed tramp of feet in the building. It was Bishop's duty to protect the county property, but in this crisis he had no time to resort to slaughter.
The muffled tramp came into the auditor's office, bringing with it Avery A.
NORTHERN PACIFIC DEPOT, 1983, LOOKING WEST FROM HOWARD The old depot now stands on Second avenue, near Madison
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.
SPOKANE STREET SCENE, 1965
I NEW YORK FUJLIC LIBRARY
4 TUN LENOX I LULA FOUNDAT ONE
1. , INMANY
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SPOKANE AND THE INLAND EMPIRE
Smith, probate judge; James Monroe Hatton, better known as Mike; John Sill, justice of the peace; Wm. Griswold, now of Seattle; Frank Spencer, newspaper man, now in California; Graves, also now in California, and, not positively but very probably, L. E. Kellogg.
Hatton was deputy sheriff. . These visitors had guns on their persons and had business with the county auditor. By singular powers of observation they imme- diately noticed the tabulated returns Bishop had been working on. Judge Smith also noted that they still lacked his signature. Justice of Peace Still made a similar observation. There wasn't a very good light, either. Bishop was probably as vigilant in this matter as any of the others. Whatever happened, the returns were quickly in legal shape to be declared official and the declaration that Cheney had been legally voted the county seat was promulgated, while the caller over at the dance was getting one more couple for the quadrille.
The courthouse callers apparently had . a definite object in view. Following the close of legal formalities they took possession of the county books and Auditor Bishop. They had gunny sacks on their feet and some reason for their haste. There was no confusion nor anything in the nature of a midnight disturbance.
Down that trail across the gulch went the books and with them went Bishop as became his duty as auditor. The procession ended in the primeval wilderness of Riverside and Post, where three wagons awaited in the gloom. These wagons suddenly absorbed the county government and started away in the specific direc- tion of Cheney.
Right then occurred the only outbreak of the evening and the Cheney people can pride themselves that they did not make it. Spokane's solitary night watchman happened to hear sounds up in the woods somewhere. He discharged his duty and his revolver simultaneously in a couple of shots for general results. Then he subsided.
There was no reply from the then transient county seat. Cheney had brought its shooting irons along. but only as a last resort.
Dr. Morgan, driving in from somewhere, reported to the few Spokane people he met that he had seen men with guns and wagons going out of town, but no immediate attention was paid to this circumstance. Men with guns and wagons were rather common then at any hour of the night.
The next morning Spokane came down town as usual. which function con- sisted in merely coming out of doors. Some of the prominent citizens of the day had offices in the courthouse shack. They ascertained presently that the court- house had undergone a change. Bishop was absent, for one thing, and it was found that the county books had also vanished. Further inquiry developed the ad- venture of the night watchman, the observation of Dr. Morgan and the proper conclusion as to what had become of the county seat. A caucus of old-timers ensued immediately.
They dispatched a scout down to Cheney to reconnoiter. The scout came haek in a melancholy frame of mind. Cheney seemed to have the best of the argument. It was standing around the county books with guns in its hands. This was on March 21, 1880. The caucus adjourned.
As an incident of history Cheney stood around those books with guns for six weeks. It accumulated all the county officers. except Cannon, who declined to be
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SPOKANE AND THE INLAND EMPIRE
treasurer anywhere except in Spokane Falls. The first potent peace token was when he finally consented to deputize a man at Cheney, as the commissioners had about decided to see what they could do toward securing a reconstructed treas- urer.
But Cheney was boldly and, as it afterward proved, untimely sardonic in tri- umph. Spokane had a show billed for its infrequent amusement in that linc. Cheney also got up a fair, at which it installed a solitary wisp of woebegone barley, labeled, "From J. N. Glover's Place."
Meanwhile, the Spokane builders, confident in the advantage of their loca- tion, went on with the heavy work of laying a city's foundation, none the less trustful of the future. They kept at it until 1886, when another county seat elee- tion was held. There was no necessity of going after the books in wagons after that vote was counted. Anything in the nature of a recount was also superfluous.
CHAPTER XLI
RECOLLECTIONS OF FRANK DALLAM, J. D. SHERWOOD AND G. B. DENNIS
BRAVE DAYS OF NEARLY THIRTY YEARS AGO-DALLAM STARTS THE REVIEW-PRINTS FIRST NUMRER AT CHENEY-HENRY VILLARD'S VISIT-PAUL SCHULZE RECOMMENDS PAINT-HANK VAUGHN, THE DESPERADO, COMES TO TOWN-SCRUB RACES IN BROWNE'S ADDITION-APPEARANCE OF TOWN IN 1883-FIGHTING FIRE WITH A BUCKET LINE-PICTURESQUE STREET LIFE-SQUAW FIGIITS-PUBLIC SPIRIT BEFORE ,, THE FIRE-MR. DENNIS AND HIS HIGH HAT-RECOLLECTIONS OF "RLIND GEORGE.
F RANK DALLAM, who came to Spokane from California in the winter of 1882-88, and a few months later issued the first number of the Review, caught instantly the free, hospitable and optimistic spirit of the town. One better fitted by temperament and training to edit a journal of the frontier the wide west could scarce have sent to Spokane. Life on the border, seorning con- ventionality and pulsing high with the spirit of hospitable democracy, Dallam loved with all the ardor of his genial nature. "The town," he has said, speaking of the brave days of nearly thirty years ago, "was made up of frame buildings, pretty well grouped about the falls, the conspicuousness of the material, devoid of paint, indicating recent erection. There was but one building on the north side, owned by Colonel D. P. Jenkins. A. M. Cannon and J. J. Browne lived at re- mote distances from the business center, in very modest houses. But the at- mosphere of the place was intoxicating, and every indication of future greatness aroused a desire to grow up with the city. I made efforts to gain a foothold. The weekly Chronicle was in existence published by a man named Woodbury, but he would listen to no overtures. I met Wm. Kizer, who was conducting a delightful hostelry on a lot back of where the Spokane theater now stands, and A. M. Canon, who was at the head of a large mercantile business, in a new, unfin- ished and what was then considered a very pretentious building. He had also just opened a banking house. This was on the lot now occupied by the marble bank building. I informed them gently of my mission, and as the Chronicle had decided leaning toward democracy, and I would not publish anything but a paper advo- cating republicanism, they were very solicitons in their efforts to induce me to locate in Spokane."
Dallam returned to California, but was back in May with his plant for the Review.
"But the first copy of the Review was not printed without heart-breaking trials
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SPOKANE AND THE INLAND EMPIRE
and tribulations. The aim had been to get out the initial copy carly in May, but in the shipment of the material a portion of the hand press was lost in route, and could not be located for days. I was in a fever of impatience. I determined to wait no longer, for a few days more would carry me over into June, and I concluded to take the forms to Cheney, where there were two papers, and 'work' the issue at that place. Loading them on a spring wagon in the evening, I started out for the neigh- boring town. perfectly ignorant of the wagon road or of the lay of the country. That ignorance caused me more misery, for when daylight appeared I was near a small cabin, and knocked the people out to find 'where I was at.' It added no at- tractions to a lovely spring morning to learn that I was close to Spangle, almost in an opposite direction from Cheney.
"I reached my destination at last ; and with much difficulty, as the bed of the Cheney press would hardly take the Review forms, the issue was printed and speedily circulated.
"If I was delighted with the prospect when Spokane was first seen under adverse conditions (in the depth of winter), words can not express my feelings of satisfac- tion when I arrived upon the scene to stay. The little city sat like a gem in a grand amphitheater, shrouded by pine-clad mountains, and then and there I fully realized the grand future of Spokane, a future that I am glad to have lived to see come about.
"Yet so far as the town was concerned at that time, it was rather a crude beauty, because there was a dearth of paint in evidence, and the house with color was the exception to the rule. Speaking of the rawness of the building aspect reminds inc of the advice given to the citizens by Paul Schulze. then land agent for the railroad, when the Northern Pacific was completed. On that great occasion Henry Villard, then the Napoleon of railroad building, was due to visit Spokane with his retinne. The citizens got busy. Arches were constructed across the street; committees of arrangements and receptions flew about and became flustered. over-heated and ex- cited. The only barouche in the city was secured to accommodate the dignitaries, and the people started in to wait for the coming of the magnates.
"As was usual in those days, something happened to delay the train. Villard arrived too late to see much of the town and the preparations made for his reception. but he and some of his party did take a short ride in the vehicle, and from the platform he and Mr. Schulze addressed the admiring and shouting commoners. The only thing about the speaking that I can remember was the suggestion made by Mr. Schulze that a little paint judiciously applied might contribute to the attrac- tions of the place, and it struck me that the gentleman was a trifle sarcastic, which would not be surprising, as he was inclined to be mordacious in his intercourse with .וויזמו
"In those days lived Hank Vaughn, with a western reputation founded upon the scientific and expeditious use of a gun of the six-shot vintage. Hank had used this weapon with a degree of efficiency that had created for him a graveyard. and when Ilank was out for a joyous festival, he was given carte blanche and no questions asked. During the preceding winter Hank favored Spokane with a visit, and while he gave no exhibition of shooting up a fellow citizen, because no one was inclined to doubt his ability, he gave the town a touch of high life that made history on the Rialto. He had to have a ride in that barouche, and proposed to do the driving. The fit took him at a time when his discretion was somewhat at fault, and he attempted
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