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The Globe Hotel: Ghost Signs of Spokane Tour
The railroad lines, and the limitless job opportunities that came with them, brought a great number of families to the Inland Northwest in search for better lives. Seeing the need for inexpensive…
Holley-Mason Hardware Building
Constructed in 1905 for $200,000, the Renaissance inspired building in front of you is a six-story commercial structure. The Holley-Mason Building was one of the first reinforced concrete buildings in…
Hotel Upton
At the turn of the century, thousands of Spokane workers lived in hotels much like this one. Built in 1910, the Hotel Upton was a Single Room Occupancy Hotel (SRO). Typical of SROs at the time, the…
Home Telephone & Telegraph Company Building
On December 31, 1886, Spokane had its first telephone exchange and an infrastructure for the technology was established. Thaddeus Lane, an entrepreneur from Ohio, was responsible for the exchange…
Odd Fellows IOOF Lodge
Like most new western cities, Spokane was home to many fraternal organizations. Fraternal organizations were a type of social organization whose members united for beneficial purpose. These societies…
The Kemp & Hebert Building
Built in 1908, Kemp & Hebert Building represents a style of construction that was extremely popular in Spokane for the time. While many new buildings were adopting the new technology of…
Morgan Block
Much like Henry Sorg who saw the need for inexpensive housing and built the Globe Hotel in 1908, Spokane real estate developer Daniel Morgan hired architect Alfred Jones to design the Fairmont Hotel…
Peyton Building and Annex
Fire constantly threatened early Spokane. The city suffered a major conflagration in 1889, but many smaller fires have struck over the years. The Peyton Building was built to replace the Great Eastern…
Bump Block and the Hotel Carlyle: Ghost Signs of Spokane Tour - Story 6
This towering structure of brick was one of the first to be built following the Great Fire of 1889. The Bump Block, constructed in 1890, is a seven-story Commercial Style infused with more classical…
1889 Building
In 1889 a great fire swept across the fledging city of Spokane destroying most of the city's downtown. Many of the buildings hastily built after the fire were not of the best quality, workmanship, or…
Hill Brothers Building
Originally, the building in front of you was a wood frame structure that was occupied by a saloon and gaming hall. The saloon, along with almost all its neighbors, was destroyed by the fire of 1889.…
Hyde Building and Annex
Until the late 1900's, when it was demolished, this site housed the architecturally interesting Hyde Building and Annex. The six-story Hyde Building was constructed in 1890 to house office spaces and…
Robertson Building
Frederick C. Robertson bought this land in 1912. The three-story building is embellished with coupled windows, flat brick and Florentine arches, belt courses of red and white bricks and a projecting…
Raznik Building
Young cities in the 1900s, especially those who were recovering from post-fire downtown, exercised freedom and ingenuity when it came to rebuilding Spokane's infrastructure. New technologies allowed…
Blair Business College: Ghost Signs of Spokane Tour
At the corner of First and Post Streets stands a squat brick building upon which is painted "Blair Business College." The faded sign is visible from blocks away, but few people understand its…
The Washington Cracker Company: Ghost Signs of Spokane Tour
The Washington Cracker Company building, which still stands at the corner of Bernard and Pacific Streets, is one of the most visible reminders of Spokane's foray into the industrial world. Its high…
Henry George Cigars: Ghost Signs of Spokane Tour
There is a striking ghost sign painted on the east side of the building at 27 West Main Street (now Harmon Autoglass) that suggests the rough-and-tumble character of the neighborhood in the 1910s when…
J&D Paints: Ghost Signs of Spokane Tour
The faded J&D Paints advertisement on the side of this building describes more than paint, it is a relic of a time when Spokane was a city of neighborhoods, each with its own miniature commercial…
Fairmont Creamery and Cold Storage: Ghost Signs of Spokane Tour
On the outskirts of Spokane's Central Business District lies a scattering of brick warehouses littered with the fading signs of a different era, including one advertising the Fairmont Creamery and…
Walldogs: The Men Who Painted the Ghost Signs
Painting advertisements on the sides of tall buildings was dangerous work--in more ways than one.
Merlin Hotel: The Place For You
The faded sign at the top of this building, The New Merlin Hotel-tells two stories. One is the story of pioneering women business owners; the other is of the slow decline of a neighborhood.
The Blossoms of Spokane's Fruit
This unassuming building is a reminder of Spokane's important early history as the center of a fruit-growing region, and also of the many brick warehouses that once dominated the eastern edge of the…
Frederick/Longbotham Building: Ghost Signs of Spokane Tour - Story 16
Like many buildings in the East Downtown Historic District, the Frederick/Longbotham building speaks to Spokane's past through the many faded advertisements still visible on its exterior.
At the…
Welcome to Fort Spokane
As Washington Territory began to grow and attract more settlers looking to make a better life, conflicts between settlers and Indian tribes escalated. Unlike the fixed settlements of pioneers, who…
Western Spokane Historic Transportation Corridor
Of the eighty-seven ghost signs in the greater Spokane area, ninety percent are within two blocks of Sprague Avenue (once known as U.S.10) and the Northern Pacific Railroad, in an area known as the…
The Great Fire of 1889
When the territory of Washington became a state in 1889, the city of Spokane Falls was one of its largest and most successful cities. Attracting wealthy businessmen who had stakes in the nearby Idaho…
Deep Creek School
The Deep Creek school was built in 1905, to replace an earlier, one-room schoolhouse that stood at the same spot.
The town of Deep Creek was founded in 1883 as Deep Creek Falls. An 1889 guide for…
Ghost Town of Elberton: Waypoints in the Palouse Tour
The towns of the Palouse followed similar patterns of early growth as white settlers flooded into the area, followed by a long and gradual decline with the greater mechanization of farming. Some…
Grand Coulee Dam: Electricity for Jackrabbits
Larger than all of the Pyramids of Giza put together, this mammoth concrete structure began as a dream in a small arid Central Washington farm town. In 1918, Billy Clapp, a lawyer in Ephrata,…
Steptoe Butte: Waypoints in the Palouse Tour
A winding fifteen minute drive up to the top of Steptoe Butte offers some of the most breathtaking views in Eastern Washington. On a clear day, visitors are greeted by a panoramic view of nearly the…