By Robert M. Lambeth
You are looking at one of the most impressive waterfalls in the Northwest and a staple of the region's geology. The Palouse is full of beautiful landscapes, but the most impressive by far is the…

By Robert M. Lambeth
Before it was known as "Spokane County's preeminent grain market," Rockford earned a reputation for vigilante justice. Like many other Western farming and ranching communities in the 1880s, Rockford…

By Robert M. Lambeth
This impressive structure is the Chicago, Milwaukee, & St. Paul (CM & SP) Viaduct, built in 1909. The CM & SP railway was, for the first few decades of settlement, one of the most important railroad…

By Robert M. Lambeth
You are looking at St. Boniface Church, named after the German apostle. It is the first consecrated Catholic Church in the State of Washington. The church not only represents the spiritual…

By Robert M. Lambeth
In the northwest corner of Whitman County, alongside Pine Creek and hidden amongst the undulating hills of Palouse wheat farming country, sits the town of Malden, Washington. This tiny town was once…

By Casey Baulne
This spot, called "hazy area," was for generations one of the prime salmon fishing spots on the upper Columbia. Npil'x refers to the area on the west side of the mouth of the Sanpoil River and…

By The Spokane Historical team
Recognizing the success of Seattle's public marketplace, early Spokane residents eagerly sought to replicate it. In August of 1908, after many politically disputes, Spokane's first public market…

By The Spokane Historical team
Elmer J. Bliss established the Regal Shoe Company in Boston in 1893. It became the most successful company of its kind in the world until it closed in 1922 during the economic slump following WWI.…

By The Spokane Historical team
Singers Bing Crosby and Mildred Bailey shared humble beginnings in Spokane's jazz scene. Bailey was singing the blues in a popular Los Angeles speakeasy when her brother, Al Rinker, lured Crosby into…

By The Spokane Historical team
In 1929, aviator Nick Mamer and mechanic Art Walker held the Spokane Sun-God aloft for five days and nights - America's first nonstop, round-trip transcontinental flight. Refueling in the air was the…

By The Spokane Historical team
Spokane House was Washington state's first fur-trading post and home to Jaco Finlay, a clerk for the North West Company of Montreal. The son of a Scottish trader and an American Indian "country wife,"…

By The Spokane Historical team
On April 30, 1806, the Corps of Discovery "took leave of those honest people the Wallahwallahs," Meriwether Lewis noted in his diary. Other important moments of Western settlement in Walla Walla would…

By The Spokane Historical team
"Near Nature. Near Perfect." The tourism motto of Visit Spokane highlights outdoor recreation, an Inland Northwest passion for more than a century. Short winters, dry climate and a yearly average of…

By The Spokane Historical team
A homesteader wrote of the Palouse in the 1880s: "Its beauty was wild and untrammeled and the undulating hills were covered with luxuriant grasses." Bunchgrasses and wildflowers created a lush meadow,…

By Nicolette Reames
In the late 1800s, the fast-growing city of Spokane attracted immigrants from all over the world, including China and Japan. As in other American cities, a combination of anti-Asian prejudice and…

By Nicolette Reames
Towards the end of the 19th century, the United States government was looking to build a fort in the inland Northwest. In 1895, Spokane residents purchased land in the Twickenham Park area and deeded…