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McEachran Hall: Where the President Works his Magic
: McEachran Hall: the administrative nerve center.
McEachran Hall serves principally as the current administration building at Whitworth University. The building is also home to the office of the university’s president, Beck Taylor. Students come here…
Punk Rock Comes to Spokane: Spokane's musical heritage is more than Bing
A three-ring circus?
Dutch Jake's Park: West Central's Most Famous Resident Memorialized
Goetz's "capacity for friendship and his charity" had made him "known from one end of this country to the other"
Doomsday Hill: Bloomsday's Toughest Climb
If you’ve never seen a city taken over by almost sixty thousand runners, visit downtown Spokane on the first Sunday in May. Since 1977, the Lilac Bloomsday Run has been a major event for the city.…
A.K. Mozumdar and the Problem of Whiteness: A Spokane immigrant and an historic court case
The crowds who came to see Akhay Kumar Mozumdar at this church in 1916 considered him a holy man, possibly even a miracle worker. But was he white? Few today know the story of Mozumdar, or how this…
The Orchard at Ft. Spokane
Today, most of Fort Spokane is bare foundations. But in the shade of the ponderosas on the western edge of the site, a few of the orchard’s original apple trees have held their ground for more than a…
How the West was Watered: The Fruitland Company Irrigation System
If they’d known it would end up under a lake, they might not have worked so hard to bring water to this land.
Make Way for Rising Waters: The 1310 Line and the Flooding of Lake Roosevelt
How do you get two tribes, six counties, and nine federal agencies to agree on something? As work began on the Grand Coulee Dam, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation was busy acquiring the land that would…
Carving the Columbia: The Ice Age Floods
These gently sloping hills beside the lake show the marks of a tumultuous process at work. This region of the Columbia Basin was carved over eons by the meander of the river, by slow erosion, and by…
Stewart Hall: Honoring Whitworth's Most Important Early President
Home to thirty-five men and thirty-five women on two floors, Stewart Hall was built in 1963. Initially, Stewart served as an all men’s dormitory. It was dedicated in honor of Calvin W. Stewart who…
Spokane’s New Era In Transportation: In the early 1900's, this city had one of the largest concentrations of automobiles West of the Mississippi
Horse-drawn carriages became less desirable, streetcars and railroads were well established around the county and in the city, and a new contraption called the automobile became the dominant mode of…
The Segregated South Hill: William H. Cowles, Jr.'s push for an all-white neighborhood
How one prominent Spokanite used racial discrimination to promote his real estate empire.
Blake-Ahlquist-Woolcott House
Private Residence
The Blake-Ahlquist-Woolcott House (or just the "Woolcott House") was built in 1902 for Jacob M. Blake, an attorney at the Blake and Adams firm. Blake was the son of a noteworthy…
Richardson House
Private Residence
Charles Prentice Richardson, a successful gold miner originally from Illinois, had this American Foursquare Style home built in 1906. The American Foursquare Style is typified by…
Glover House
Private Residence
James Nettle Glover is commonly referred to as the "Father of Spokane." He, accompanied by his wife Susan Tabitha Crump Glover, essentially created the city after purchasing 160…
Smith Cottage
Private Residence
The Smith Cottage is both architecturally and historically interesting. Built in 1912 by Charles R. Wood, the Smith Cottage is also commonly referred to as the Smith House (not…
Water Power: MAC 100 Stories: A Centennial Exhibition
For nineteenth-century pioneers like James Glover, falling water represented power - the power to grind flour, to saw logs, and to build a city. These were the fundamental industrial activities in a…
Expo 74 and the Creation of Riverfront Park: MAC 100 Stories: A Centennial Exhibition
The Spokane River gorge has undergone many transformations in the last century. Don't be distracted by the roar of the falls; look at the riverfront. Until 2011, the trees, shrubs, and concrete…
Restoring the Falls: Expo '74 and Riverfront Park Tour
Standing on the bridge between Canada and Havermale Islands, you can see one of the many restorations of the Spokane Falls that began with Expo '74. The spray and splash of the falls during the annual…
Getting a Goat: Expo '74 and Riverfront Park Tour
Surrounded by a grotto of basalt columns is one of the most perennially popular remnants of Riverfront Park's past - the "Garbage Goat." Sculpted by Sister Paula Turnbull, a local nun and leading…
The Creation of the Falls: The Indian Falls
You are now looking at the Lower Falls of the Spokane River. This site was important in both the legends and daily lives of the Spokane, the Coeur d'Alene and others in this region.
In one…
The Great Northern Clocktower: Expo '74 and Riverfront Park Tour
You are standing next to the clock tower of the former Great Northern station. It is one of the few surviving remnants of Havermale Island as it was from the first years of the 20th century until…
The Pioneer Falls
Extending upstream from where you stand is Inspiration Point and the monuments to the so-called Christian Pioneers. Funded and dedicated by an ecumenical collection of local churches, the monument…
The Origins of Segregated Neighborhoods in Spokane: It Started in the Cemeteries
By the mid-20th century, racially segregated neighborhoods became common in Spokane. Some were segregated by the force of law.
Merkel Field: The Home of Whitworth's Baseball Team
Field of Dreams
Spokane Falls SkyRide: Expo '74 and Riverfront Park Tour - Stop 7
The 1974 World's Fair provided Spokane with an opportunity to reclaim the beauty of Spokane Falls, which had been hidden for years by railroad tracks. In order to provide visitors with the most…
Cold War Thaw: Expo '74 and Riverfront Park Tour - Stop 4
The 1974 World's Fair took place against a backdrop of improving relations between the United States and Soviet Russia. In May of 1972, USSR officials and President Nixon signed an environmental…
Canada Island: Expo '74 and Riverfront Park Tour - Stop 8
Canada Island has had many different names and faces in the last 150 years. Today the island is a part of Riverfront Park and serves as a natural oasis in the middle of downtown. Forty years ago it…
When Nixon Came to the Fair: Expo '74 and Riverfront Park Tour
In May of 1974, an embattled President Richard Nixon visited Spokane to dedicate the 1974 World's Fair against a backdrop of lies, cover-ups, and political drama. By this time, the president was in…
The Father of the Fair: Expo '74 and Riverfront Park Tour - Stop 3
In 1974, a World's Fair helped Spokane remove unsightly railroads from its downtown riverfront and left Riverfront Park in its wake. Spokane was the smallest city to ever host a World's Fair, so it…