Mearow Block

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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 one-story brick building. Mearow operated the Bell Furniture Company out of the first floor of both buildings from 1925 to 1945. When he retired he sold the building to Sylvan Dreifus who ran the Sylvan Furniture Company out of the first floors from 1945 until 2003.

The Mearow Block is historically significant because both the Bickett and the Richmond were single room occupancy hotels. These style of hotels were an important part of Spokane's history. Between 1900 and 1910 Spokane had a massive population boom growing from 30,000 to 100,000. The bulk of the growth was young working class men. An industry started to support this surplus of unmarried working men and soon exploded. However after 1910 construction of new single room occupancy hotels had for the most part ended.

During the preparations for EXPO '74 many of these hotels were demolished, which makes these two hotels even more important as remaining examples. While the first floor of the two hotels have been changed because they are primarily used for retail, the second and third floors remain largely unaltered.