Merlin Hotel

Text

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 Merlin Hotel was one of Spokane's largest female-run businesses. Emma J. Cothlin purchased the building in 1911 after moving to Spokane with her husband Wesley. She ran the hotel and a successful grocery store at W 1230 2nd Ave., just a few blocks away. Mrs. Fayne Mitchell bought the hotel in 1917 and ran the hotel for one year until it sold to Albert O. Hardy.

In the early 1900s, the Merlin building sheltered people of the middle class to low income. The hotel advertised itself as the "New Merlin, High Class, Neat & Clean," etc. It offered two furnished rooms as apartments and single rooms depending on the guests' budget. The place was "strictly modern." By 1921, W. D. Ellis transformed the hotel into apartments, changing the name to the Merlin Apartments.

After WWII the trickle of businesses and people out of downtown business districts and into the suburbs struck Spokane. In 1990 the City of Spokane had plans to demolish the building due to its old rugged walls. The building now housed "addicts, hookers, and thieves." Violence occurred in the hallways, cockroaches crawled about, and the communal bathrooms were filthy. Although rent was less than $200 a month, low-income tenants could not afford to go anywhere else and the owners could not afford to renovate right away. Luckily, the mayor of Spokane, Sherri Barnard, revoked the idea of demolishing the building.

The neighborhood has slowly been improving and the Merlin has improved with it. The Merlin Apartments now house discipleship men from the Spokane Dream Center to help heal them in a communal setting.