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The Carnegie Library
In 1905, a growing city needed a new library. Carnegie libraries were built with donated funds from the Scottish-American millionaire Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie believed that a "man who dies rich, dies…
The American Legion Building
The commercial Renaissance Revival style structure that dominates the intersection of Washington Street and W. Riverside Avenue is a spectacle of the wealth acquired through the Coeur d'Alene mining…
The American Firebrick Company
This is the site of the American Firebrick Company. Charles P. Oudin, Lucien Oudin, James Kilbreth, and Frank Watson started the American Firebrick Company in 1902. Although it is located 15 miles…
The Centennial Sculpture
What's that in the river? The stainless steel sculpture floating in the Spokane River was created by Harold Balazs in 1978. It was dedicated to the city in 1981 in celebration of the City of Spokane's…
The Rotary Riverfront Fountain: Expo '74 and Riverfront Park Tour
The magnificent fountain in front of you, almost never transpired from vision to reality. When Riverfront Park was renovated following Expo '74, an entertaining children's fountain, as well as an…
Vietnam Veterans Memorial
From 1955 to 1975, more than 3 million Americans fought in Vietnam. Almost 60,000 U.S. soldiers were killed, and more than 150,000 wounded in combat. Almost every community across the United States,…
Lantern Statue
This twenty-foot cement statue was originally titled Untitled, but was quickly renamed The Lantern due to its striking closeness to that of a Japanese lantern. A disarray of geometric cut-outs allows…
The Call and The Challenge
The sculpture in front of you is called The Call and The Challenge. It was erected by Ken Spiering in 1986 to commemorate Sacred Heart Medical Center's 100th year anniversary. The piece depicts Mother…
Shamil
This sculpture with the austere expression was dedicated on July 2, 1992. This abstract sculpture was given to Spokane by our former sister city Makhachkala. The sculpture represents Shamil, an…
The Aluminum Fountain
The symmetrical tall sculpture in front of you was created by George Tsutakawa in 1974. George Tsutakawa has created fountains all over the United States and Japan. In congruence with Mr. Tsutakawas…
Spokanes Automobile Hub: When Cars Were Needed, Doran Was Your Location
Sitting on 707 W. 2nd Avenue the Doran Building was constructed in 1920 by Spokane architect Arthur Cowley. The building served as a car dealership during the peak of Spokane's automobile purchases…
The Timely Tale of Dodson's Jewelers: How George Dodson set the standard for a Spokane retail experience.
George Roley Dodson established what would become one of the oldest retail stores in Washington state.
Lindaman Center: The Home to the Social Sciences: A World War II building named for a "Futurist President"
Throughout the years, the Lindaman Center has served many purposes at Whitworth University. The building was originally the Music and Arts building and was part of the 1946 Mead Act, which provided…
The Pirates Den: An African American Owned and Operated Harlem Renaissance-Style Dine and Dance Club
During the time of segregation in the Spokane area, one club owned and operated by an African American wrote their own history one dance and one meal at a time.
This is Insulting to Women: Marion Moos Champions Feminism in Spokane
Opened in 1973, Spokane’s first feminist bookstore provided a safe place for women
Sex Work in Early Spokane: Sex work was an important economic driver in the growth of the Lilac City.
Though first-hand accounts from prostitutes in this era are rare, a set of letters from a Spokane sex worker shed light on "the world's oldest profession."
Creamery Robbery Turns Deadly
You are now standing where a murder weapon was disposed of in 1935 only to be rediscovered in 1989 solving the oldest active murder case in the nation.
In 1935, Newport City Marshall George…
The Formidable May Hutton
In 1883, orphan May Arkwright moved to Idaho from Ohio where she worked as a saloon cook and opened up her own boarding house, where she quickly gained a reputation as the "best cook in the Coeur…
Unsolved Assassination
[PRIVATE RESIDENCE - Do not disturb.]
A shot rang out, glass broke, and down went the former Spokane Police Chief, John Sullivan, in his own living room. On Jan. 5, 1911 the former Chief of Police…
The Corbin Ditch
The main challenge for farming in the Spokane Valley was supplementing the meager local rain fall with manmade irrigation systems. Gravity ditches, such as the Corbin Ditch, formed the core of early…
St. Joseph's Church & Cemetery
Among the earliest signs of white settlement in the Spokane Valley was the construction of churches and cemeteries, and St Joseph's Church & Cemetery is the earliest in the Spokane Valley. The…
Vera Pump House No. 1
In the early 1900s development of the Spokane Valley was driven by land speculators. With a modest investment into infrastructure and a far flung advertising campaign, small land management companies…
Trentwood Kaiser Aluminum Rolling Plant
The economy of Washington is tightly connected to the vast hydroelectric development of the state. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the federal government laid the framework for a series of…
Whitworth Veteran Memorial: In Memory of Those who Died Protecting the U.S.: Here lies the memories of some of the soldiers that attended Whitworth
Here Whitworth honors and remembers those who made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of the United States. These Whitworth students were American heroes and deserve to be remembered. To honor these…
Cataldo Mission
Driving east along Idaho's Interstate 90, as you come around the bend at mile marker 38, a stunning view of the Old Mission opens up on your right. On a bright spring day, it can even look…
The 4th of July Regatta on Lake Coeur d’Alene: A true celebration is incomplete without things that are loud and go fast, that is how the Coeur d'Alene 4th of July festivities began.
Forty horsepower engines and twelve year olds racing! Newspaper records show the first competitive rooster tails spouted over lake Coeur d’Alene on July 3rd, 1913, for the early 20th century, Coeur…
J.C. White House - New Museum of North Idaho: J.C. White was a strong supporter of “keeping it local”, he helped build the city we know today.
J.C. White was an engineer who liked to party, but he was also a strong proponent of community and development. It is tough to strike the right balance, but as the history of Coeur d’Alene shows, it…
A Gathering Place, The Historical Fort Sherman: A place of beauty, used for centuries as a gathering place, became the foundation of the city we know today as Coeur d’Alene.
The first rule of business is to be careful who you partner with. The beauty of Coeur d’Alene drew attention that changed the course of history for both the Coeur d’Alene people and the inland pacific…
The Sunken Ore of Lake Coeur d’Alene: Every body of water holds history and buried secrets, some may be dark or tantalizingly lucrative, others just let the trash and junk tell their stories. Lake Coeur d’Alene is no exception.
When you hear of shipwrecks and sunken treasure, the mind automatically drifts to thoughts of pirates and the deep sea. But there is a rumor of a different kind of treasure sitting at the bottom of…
Lookout Pass: The ski area discovered by freight-hoppers, which grew into a real winter sport destination.
Today we have heli-skiing for the true adventurers who want to tackle untamed powder, but in the early 1900s it took real ingenuity to access downhill ski areas off the beaten path. Located in the…