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Doyle's Ice Cream Parlor
Every Spokane neighborhood has its beloved iconic business. The Milk Bottle in Garland, Dicks Hamburgers and Frankie’s Diner downtown, and The Elk in Browne’s Addition help define the unique character…
The Hamilton Building: Hamilton Studio used to be a gymnasium for St. Joseph’s Catholic School
Beginning in the 1800s, many Catholic parents began to believe that their children were not served by a system of public education that was dominated by Protestant educators and elected officials.…
Nat Reiss and the Spokane Carnival
Carnivals and Circuses were big business in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Barnum and Bailey’s ‘Greatest Show on Earth’ and the popular Ringling Brothers Circus were two of the biggest…
The Florence Crittenton House: A Home for Wayward Women
One hundred years ago, women had little access to birth control or legal ways of ending pregnancies. For unwed women, an unplanned pregnancy could lead to expulsion from the home and social disgrace.…
The Sperry Mill Company
Spokane stands on the edge of a sea of wheat, and grain and milling was a growth industry in the city in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. There are several mills still standing to…
The McKinley School
Education is a cornerstone of great cities, and Spokane is no different. The elegance of buildings like the McKinley School testify to the value that early Spokanites attributed to public…
The Sanchez Family: Undocumented Immigrants Prospering in the Yakima Valley: The journey towards the “American Dream”
The ambitious young family that migrated into the Yakima Valley undocumented in search of agricultural opportunities in 1909.
Alberto Ricardo: Walla Walla’s First Mexican Success Story: A Story of Forgotten Mexican Pioneers
Among the very first Mexican immigrants to eastern Washington, Alberto Ricardo overcame intense prejudice to become a successful printer, newspaper owner, and town father in Dayton, Washington.
Old Bones Cemetery
The Palouse Indian Village at the confluence of the Palouse and Snake Rivers was home to many generations of Native peoples until the mid-1940s. The river provided the village with ample fish and…
Who Was Harlen Bretz?
J Harlen Bretz, whose given name was Harley J. Bretz, was born in 1882 in Michigan. The oldest of five children, Bretz had an early interest in astronomy and the natural environment that surrounded…
Saltese School
Built in 1893, Saltese School began as a simple log building built on land owned by early pioneer Daniel Courchaine. Grades one through eight were educated in this one-room schoolhouse. Most of the…
The Courchaine House
[Private Residence]
Greenacres was the place to be for pioneer Daniel Courchaine in 1867. Born in Quebec in the 1830s, Courchaine lived in Green Bay, Wisconsin for a time before heading west to…
US Highway 10
By the early 1900s, automobiles were more affordable than ever and the middle class clamored for new roads. US Highway 10 was known at different times as the Sunset Highway, The North Pacific Highway,…
Mica Peak and Prohibition
Mica Peak today is a popular hiking spot with the entrance at Liberty Lake Regional Park. The very qualities that make it perfect for recreation today made it perfect for another activity nearly a…
Romance and Murder in Prohibition-Era Colville: A 1930 murder in Colville and a He-Said, She-Said Trial
A family argument led to a mother's death and a daughter's arrest--but who really killed Susie Moses?
Washington State Pavilion: Expo '74 and Riverfront Park Tour
This building, the INB Performing Arts Center, was originally built as the Washinton State Pavilion for Expo 74.
One of the most serious concerns for an exposition is getting exhibitors. The first…
Pine Creek Dairy Creamery
The Pine Creek Dairy Creamery building was built in 1908. It was an extension of the Pine Creek Dairy that operated in the Spokane Valley. The building was used for office space and a distribution…
Mearow Block
The Mearow Block began as two separate buildings the Bickett Hotel built in 1905 and the Richmond Hotel built in 1907. Joseph A. Mearow bought the two buildings and in 1928 connected them with a…
Sunset Bridge
Originally named the Hangman Creek Bridge, this span was constructed in 1911. The creek below was known as Hangman Creek since 1854, when Colonel George Wright hanged a group of American Indians, who…
Miller Block
You are looking at the Miller Block, built in 1890. Stanley Miller, a co-proprietor of the Spokane Ice Company, bought this land and had a two story wood-post building constructed in 1887. This…
Old City Hall
Spokane's Old City Hall was built in 1912-1913. The structure was intended to temporarily house the government of Spokane until funding could be raised for the constructions of a larger and more…
Montgomery Wards Building - City Hall
You are looking at the old Montgomery Wards building, now Spokane City Hall. The site of this building is wonderfully situated. It over-looks the Lower Spokane Falls, is next to Riverfront Park, and…
Great Western Building
The Great Western Savings and Loan building was constructed in 1900. It was originally named the Empire State Building, for the Empire State - Idaho company. The building was paid for by Charles…
Flour Mill
The city of Spokane began as a small cluster of buildings on the south side of the falls, focused around saw mills and and later flour mills. This is why the city was originally named Spokane Falls.…
Looff Carrousel
Riverfront Park's Looff Carrousel is one of America's most beautiful and well preserved, hand-carved wooden carousels. It has 54 houses, a giraffe, a tiger and two Chinese dragons, all of which are…
City Ramp Garage
You are looking at the City Ramp Garage. Built in 1928, this structure represents many firsts in Spokane history. It was Spokane's first mulit-level, staggered-floor, ramp-type parking garage. At…
The Crescent Building
Large department stores once ruled the centers of American cities. Macy's in New York, Nordstrom in Seattle, and the Crescent in Spokane sold everything needed for daily life and often many extras. …
“She Said She Had Always Wanted to Be a Whore”: The Unusual Divorce of W.P. and Kate Horton
This couple endured what could possibly be the shortest marriage in frontier Washington history—all because one person chased their lifelong dream.
The Mistress on the Saloon Roof: A Tale of a Blatant Affair and an Unsuccessful Escape
A woman is blatantly cheated on by her husband while cleaning the rooms in the boarding house. She found her husband’s mistress outside on the roof of the saloon next door, trying to escape.
The Enduring Mystery of F. Lewis Clark: “F. Lewis Clark, Spokane Millionaire, Missing—Suicide?”
The 1914 disappearance of F. Lewis Clark made headlines across the United States and remains shrouded in mystery.