“Everything you need to know about life is in the Coyote stories- if you just listen carefully.” Flathead elder, Joe Cullooyah The Salish-speaking Spokane Indians occupied a wide territory, much of it along the drainages of the Spokane and…

In the early 1900s, tuberculosis was known as the “great white plague,” and at the turn of the century it killed around 450 Americans every day. An infectious disease of the lungs, tuberculosis spreads through the air, usually via coughing fits.…

Helen Clark, one of the first white school teachers on the Spokane Reservation, was a Scottish Presbyterian who worked with the Women’s National Indian Association. Clark arrived on the Spokane Reservation in 1894, one of the only non-Native…

This jail cell has harbored many a man; frontiersmen, troublesome soldiers, and defiant Indians. One of the most infamous prisoners was the shama q,olá’ skin, known in English as Skolaskin, who founded a new religion among his native…

Before the invention of the refrigerator, Americans relied on the iceman. His frequent deliveries were similar to the milkman. He started his route at a local ice-warehouse where he loaded ice blocks onto a horse-drawn wagon. Ice was crucial for…

In 1887, Norwegian-born Helga and Ole Estby purchased 160 acres of land in “Little Norway,” an enclave in the town of Mica Creek, 25 miles southeast of Spokane. Shortly after the Panic of 1893, Ole injured his back and was unable to work the family…

Before the advent of the electric trolley in 1889 or Ford’s Model T in 1908, Spokanites got around by foot or by horse and buggy. The height of the carriage era lasted from 1850-1910, a time when horse-drawn carriages were as common as automobiles…

For the first decades of Spokane’s history, its citizens got around on foot or on horse. In a very few places downtown, horse rings can still be found in the granite curbs. Here, on the corner of Main and Stevens in downtown Spokane, lie two…