This photo was taken only a few years before this grand structure was demolished and replaced with a more modern courthouse and a bigger jail. The jail in this photo is the building to the left of the courthouse, but in 1898, the jail was in the basement of the courthouse. That is where the lynching victims were taken from before they were dragged upstairs and hanged from the second story windows (visible in this picture).

Image courtesy of Whitman County Rural Heritage.
http://www.washingtonruralheritage.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/whitman/id/3485/rec/9