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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…
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…
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…
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…
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?
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.
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.
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 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 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.…
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 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.…
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 Chamberlin House: The work of a forgotten Spokane builder.
In the early years of the 20th century, Gilbert Chamberlin and his son Ernest created much of the West Central neighborhood.
Batch Bakeshop
Local family owned businesses help create and define neighborhoods and in the early part of Spokane’s history small butcher shops, supply stores and dairies were a familiar sight. Built in 1905 and…
Project Hope & William’s Market
The West Central neighborhood was platted in the 1880’s when William Pettet and William Nettleton invested heavily in the area. The neighborhood grew with new homes and businesses and hundreds of…
Vinegar Flats: The Keller-Lorenz Vinegar Works
The area known as Vinegar Flats has a diverse history and was once home to local tribes, pioneers from the East coast, as well as new immigrants moving into Spokane. As early as 1874 there were small…
Wildlife on the South Hill Bluffs
Like most of the landscape in Eastern Washington, the South Hill Bluffs in Spokane reveal the incredible influence of Lake Missoula’s ice dam that broke apart and surged through the area around 20,000…
Hangman Creek
Hangman Creek is one of the Spokane River’s largest tributaries and is surrounded by lush meadows and farmland. It once provided local tribes with food sources such as trout, salmon and freshwater…
Hangman or Latah Creek?: What’s in a name? The Strange Saga of Hangman Creek
Is the creek in front of you called Hangman or Latah Creek? It depends on who you ask.
Palouse Village
Palouse village, known to the local tribes as Naha’u’umpu’u, or “People of the River,” was one of the oldest sites of the Palus (or Palouse) Indians of the Pacific Northwest. It is located at the…
The Hoyt Smokestack: A Relic From the Blossoming of Spokane’s Flower Industry
“I have faith to believe that we have only just begun to see the development of this wonderful section of the United States and I am proud indeed to have been able to add my mite in bringing about…
Deer Lake Irrigated Orchard Company: A testament to the resolve of early Black Spokane
Around the turn of the last century numerous African Americans migrated from the deep South to Spokane in hopes of building a freer and more prosperous life. In which some of them achieved this with…
Showalter Hall
The building you are now facing is Showalter Hall, the oldest building on campus dating back to EWU's second incarnation as a teachers college. Throughout the history of EWU its development has been…