The Parsons Hotel

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Located on the southwest corner of Jefferson and First Avenue, the Parsons Hotel opened in 1910 as a family-oriented hotel with 104 rooms. It was built in 1909 by W. E. Parsons, a railroad man and real estate investor, at a cost of approximately $150,000. Parsons owned and operated the hotel for approximately 9 months before leasing it to George R. Kruegel, a former night steward at the Davenport Hotel.

In its early years, the ground floor of the Parsons served as a showroom for the Foxter-Larson automobile dealership. A restaurant known as the Dutch Kitchen was also based in the Parsons. As with many hotels of this era, social clubs and interest groups used the Parsons to hold their meetings; one notable club was the Scribes, a "story-writing club" for women.

After changing hands several times, the Parsons was purchased in 1926 by George Sillman, prolific Spokane builder and owner of the Hotel Sillman. Upon his death in 1953, the hotel passed to his daughter-in-law Katherine Sillman and grandson J. Gordon Sillman. Gordon Sillman had primary responsibility for the hotel until it was sold again in 1961, and remained as manager until his death in 1966.

Like many downtown Spokane hotels in the mid-twentieth century, the Parsons suffered a regrettable decline through the 1950s and 1960s. The number of society events and positive newspaper mentions dwindled as reports of crime increased, and each time the property changed hands, its estimated value was lower. One bright spot during these years was the Scribes club, still going strong and now known as the Spokane Penwomen. As of 1956, the twenty active members of the club had published 21 books and hundreds of shorter articles and stories. In this era, the coffee shop and restaurant downstairs was known as the Showboat Restaurant, while the accompanying lounge was called the Paddleboat Lounge.

By the late 1970s, the Parsons was in serious disrepair and largely unoccupied. Its owner, Dennis Swartout, closed the hotel to the tourist trade in 1975, leaving only longer-term tenants on the upper floors; he then closed these upper floors in 1977, citing prohibitively high costs of heating the old building. Approximately 75 long-term tenants of the Parsons were forced to relocate, many of whom were elderly and low-income. The card room, restaurant, and lounge on the ground floor remained open. Swartout told the Spokesman-Review that he expected the building was likely to “sit until the land value warrants tearing the building down.”

Fortunately, Swartout’s dire prediction did not come to pass. In 1979, the Parsons was granted an unexpected reprieve from an unlikely source: the Spokane City Council voted to turn the decrepit hotel into the Spokane Housing Authority’s first housing project. Unexpected structural problems, cost overruns, and election-related political maneuvering kept the Parsons in the news for the next few years as the old building was restored and reconfigured. Despite these challenges, the housing project successfully opened as "The Parsons'' in November of 1982. The 104 rooms on the upper floors of the hotel were converted into 50 living units with kitchen facilities. These housing units were then made available to low-income seniors and people with disabilities, using a sliding-scale rent system and need-based application process.

This incarnation of the Parsons survives to the present day, providing affordable apartments for eligible residents. According to the Spokane Housing Authority, the Parsons was "acquired and remodeled by Parsons LLLP in 2016, using Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) and tax exempt bonds. This $6.9 million project will extend the affordability of the project for an additional 40 years." Once nearly doomed to demolition, the Parsons has now found a promising path forward into its second century.