Jangba Johnson was humiliated by the barbershop owner John W. Wheeler for refusing to service the young Black man saying that he did not cut “colored hair”. Johnson complained to his fellow students at Gonzaga about his mistreatment. Some students, mostly whites asked Wheeler to promise that such an incident would never happen again. When Wheeler refused the students picketed Wheeler’s barbershop, a protest that was reported in the national news media. They also went into Spokane’s local NAACP office and filed a complaint against Weeler’s barbershop, on the grounds of racial discrimination in what would turn out to be Spokane's most defining civil rights case of the 1960s.

The lawyer who took the case was Carl Maxey, Spokane's leading civil rights attorney who broke down several barriers for people of color in the city. Maxey took Johnson’s case pro bono and filed a complaint on his behalf to the Washington State Board Against Discrimination, arguing that it was illegal for a business that serves the public to refuse service based on race.

The case quickly divided the city and attracted national attention to Spokane. On one side was Carl Maxey representing the student Jangba Johnson and the other was Michael J. Hemovich representing the barbershop owner John Wheeler. Hemovich and Maxey traded blows against each other. Maxey argued that since a “barber’s license is a privilege and not a right. A barber cannot, under the law arbitrarily refuse service to a customer based on their race.” Hemovich argued that forcing Wheeler “to perform a personal service constituted to what amount as involuntary servitude.” Each side gave as good as they go in front of a packed audience.

It took the Board of Discrimination three minutes to give out a judgment on the case. They ruled against John Wheeler, ordering him to serve all races in his barbershop. Wheeler appealed to the State’s Supreme Court and lost. Rather than serve African Americans in his barbershop, Wheeler decided to close shop and retire.

This case was just another win for Maxey, for the city and people of Spokane it was something else. Spokane was a city with a small African American population, and the case of Jangba Johnson and John Wheeler brought the topic of both segregation and racism to the front of discussions in the city.

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Tiffany’s Skate Inn was a roller skating rink which opened in 1968 and was located at W. 708 Boone Avenue in Spokane. It was across the street from the old Coliseum where the Spokane Arena is now. Dennis King, Sr., acquired and operated the rink in Spokane as well as the Tiffany’s rinks in Kent and Puyallup. They were all very modern for the era in which they were built. The name Tiffany’s came from the original builder’s newborn baby girl.

The roller skate was invented in the 1700s, but did not become popular until the 20th century. Its peak popularity came in the 1970’s, when recreational roller skating was one of the most popular American pastimes. With the help of disco and the newly invented polyurethane wheel, skating dominated cities all over the nation. Skating rinks were great for birthday parties, date nights, and community gathering places.

Tiffany’s had tall, soaring ceilings with large glass windows all around which made it feel bright, open, and airy. There was a glass ball in the center of the ceiling with lights that would twinkle and illuminate colors on the floor and walls when the lights were turned down. The rink had a stage that was used for community events such as rock concerts and March of Dimes telethons.

It had the largest hardwood floor of Tiffany’s rinks and was built at a cost of $340,000. The wood floor was built with a bit of a bounce to it which helped when skaters fell. Today’s rink floors are made of plastic which while lower in cost to build and maintain are less forgiving when one falls. The floor was 100 x 200 feet in size and was as large as the Oaks Park Roller Rink in Portland. The sound system was state of the art at the time for clarity and depth to accommodate all types of music and events.

Whether skaters went for fun and recreation with the “all skates”, “couples skates”, and the “Hokey Pokey” to name a few at the skating sessions; or for regular after-hours practices for speed, artistic (freestyle and figures), and dance skating, there were activities for all levels and interests at the rink.

The rink closed in 1975 but is fondly remembered by numerous Spokanites.

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On April 3rd, 1922, Commissioner Gifford, the territorial commander of the Salvation Army, addressed hundreds of Spokane citizens who attended the dedication ceremony of the new headquarters at 245 W. Main. “The doors to this building shall always be open to the homeless and unfortunate that desire the care and assistance of the Salvation Army.” In the new building, the Salvation Army would continue the work the organization started when if first arrived in Spokane in 1891.

First making its way to the United States in 1880, the Salvation Army began with Reverend William Booth and his family in London, England. Booth took a rather unorthodox approach to spreading his “good word”. Rather than preaching in churches, he went directly to the people, often those who were overlooked or shunned, he ministered to “thieves, prostitutes, gamblers, and drunkards.” This community outreach which started as simple proselytizing, grew into an organization that has helped feed, shelter, cloth, and care for those most in need in over 130 countries for the past 150 years.

The Salvation Army began its Spokane residence by nearly being banned for being a public nuisance, the noise from their brass instruments and drums startling the town’s main means of transportation at the time, horses. The attention from both the preaching and rabble rousing quickly swelled their ranks from 3 to nearly 200 within just a few years. Eventually overgrowing the offices they were occupying, in 1919 they purchased land on West Main Avenue for a new headquarters. The new location was projected to cost $125,000 and after an enormously successful fundraising effort, the building was completed in 1921.

Designed by architect Archibald Rigg, who designed several other of Spokane’s buildings including the Altedenia Apartments and The Masonic Temple, the brick building consists of 3 floors and a basement level, which held a swimming pool, gymnasium, and kitchen. The main floor held the meeting areas and offices, while the second and third floor became single-occupancy rooms that were rented out at a subsidize price which became known as The Red Shield Hotel. One unique design feature of this building is visible in the first-floor windows. Rather than making large arching window a feature of higher floors, like most other Spokane buildings, Rigg designed these to exist on the first floor.

The Salvation Army would occupy this location, helping those in need for 50 years. During the Great Depression, dozens would wait in line for a donut and coffee, a tradition started by the organization in France during World War I. In 1972 The Salvation Army changed headquarters. A short-lived tavern occupied the first floor until 1981 after which the building stood vacant for almost 20 years. In 1999 the owners of Luigi’s, a local Italian restaurant, purchased and revamped the building, turning the first floor and mezzanine into restaurant space and the second and third floors into offices. While the inside of the building may have dramatically changed, the outside preserves its historic look being one of the few buildings in Spokane to retain its original marquee.

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The West Central neighborhood was platted in the 1880’s when William Pettet and William Nettleton invested heavily in the area. The neighborhood grew with new homes and businesses and hundreds of people moved to the area. Development was accelerated with the trolley system in the 1890s. You can still see streetcar track remnants on Cochran and Dean avenues, part of a system built by the Washington Water Power Co. in 1899. Accessibility to Natatorium Park and the scenic views of the river provided a wonderful recreational retreat for the thriving community.

In the early 1900s West Central, like other Spokane neighborhoods, boasted a series of small neighborhood groceries. Today however, West Central is in an area that is known as a “food desert,” a Federal Government designation that includes a lack of transportation as well as a scarcity of grocery and produce stores. The neighborhood is encircled by the Spokane River but its proximity to downtown is hampered by transportation issues and traversing the Monroe Street Bridge.

Project Hope is working to overcome these problems and focuses directly on the West Central neighborhood. Its mission is to engage young adults ages eleven to eighteen in a business model that provides education and job training as well as offering locally grown fruits and vegetables to some of the neighborhood’s poorest communities. As part of the organization, kids learn how to grow, sell, and promote the produce to locals. It not only provides them with marketable skills but also keeps them out of trouble.

James Kashork, the director of Project Hope, believes the organization is at a crossroads and points to the rapid increase in participation over the last three years. With a crew of just twenty-four volunteers in 2013, three years later the number is in the seventies. Kashork believes with additional funding they’ll be able to transition older kids from volunteers to paid employees. With a grant and a generous donation from the Kendall Yards’ developers, Project Hope will eventually have a new location which will house an additional market as well as the organization’s headquarters. The new development will be named the William’s Market - honoring the famous two Williams who helped create the neighborhood originally.

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Local family owned businesses help create and define neighborhoods and in the early part of Spokane’s history small butcher shops, supply stores and dairies were a familiar sight. Built in 1905 and originally a family-owned butcher shop known as St. Paul’s Market, this store was one of the few commercial buildings in the mostly residential neighborhood of west central Spokane.

From 1910 to 1936 it was owned by Julius J. Danielson, and was notable for housing a neighborhood church in its basement as well as being a general meeting place for local community members. The Westminster Presbyterian Church was established in May 1905 by Dr. James H. Shields, (later becoming pastor,) and eventually moved to a location nearby on North Cannon street.

In 1936, the St Paul’s Market closed but the building continued to operate as a meat and grocery market until the 1960’s under the name The Dean Avenue Market. Although you cannot see them from the shop itself, the original meat hooks used in the butcher shop a hundred years ago are still visible in the residential portion of the store.

The building served other business over the years but had been largely neglected until 2006 when Brian Jennings and his wife decided to buy the old store and renovate. They looked to the community for ideas about what business would best serve the area and eventually settled on a bakery and catering business. Today the interior of the store has been completely renovated --Batch bakeshop continues the tradition of being a community hub and sells delicious baked goods and coffee as well as offering catered weddings and custom cakes. Stop by and ask about the rich history of the building.

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Spokane was a booming city in the early part of the twentieth century attracting a great many land prospectors from across the country. Newcomers such as William Nettleton and William Pettet may have platted the West Central area in 1887 but it was Gilbert Chamberlin and his son Ernest who designed and constructed many of the first houses. Chamberlin had already made a name for himself in other areas and had built several suburban neighborhoods in Kansas and Utah before arriving in Spokane in 1899. By 1912 he had built hundreds of homes for the bustling west central neighborhood. He credited his success to being a good businessman and a fair dealer. He also noted that the area was in great demand; streetcars were popular and the Natatorium Park brought families and visitors to the area in their hundreds.

In 1912, Chamberlin had provided simple bungalows to over four hundred new residents to West Central and continued to invest in real estate. Historian, N.W. Durham, wrote of Chamberlin, “many of the successful men of today owe their advancements in part to the Chamberlin companies, whereby they have been enabled to gain homes of their own and make a start in life.” Much like the Sears Catalogs, the Chamberlin Real Estate company also created catalog designs of homes that were very distinctive and helped shape the look of the neighborhood.

A wonderful example of the Chamberlin design is the house at 2627 W Gardner. Although the interior of the home has been modified over the years, the exterior of the house has remained the same and still features many distinctive architectural details of a classic Queen Anne bungalow including the pitched roof, multiple cross gables, and decorative corbelled chimney cap. The house was also featured in the 1907 edition of Spokane’s Home Builders and is now on the Spokane Register of Historic Places. Take a look at this beautiful home and see if you can spot other Chamberlin homes in the area!

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Beginning in the 1800s, many Catholic parents began to believe that their children were not served by a system of public education that was dominated by Protestant educators and elected officials. Catholic schools were founded across the country in an effort to provide an education that was both up-to-date and aligned with their faith.

In Spokane, St Joseph's Catholic Church in west central oversaw one of the first parish schools in the area. The Hamilton Building on the corner of Dean and Walnut is a large structure that was originally part of the catholic school and was used as a gym and an assembly hall. Additional buildings included….XX. There were at least ten other parochial schools in Spokane at this time with several thousand school pupils attending. The school offered the basic three “Rs,” plus Religion, and operated on a similar schedule to public schools. According to the Review, a case of Scarlet Fever closed the school for a full week in February 1953 but it reopened after the scare was over.

The building itself, built in 1928, is a fine example of the Spanish Eclectic style with distinctive tile and roof features designed by well-known architect Julius Zittel. Zittel was originally from Germany and designed many buildings in Spokane including several other Catholic churches and school buildings, (among them Gonzaga’s St. Aloysius church.) He was appointed state architect in 1897 which was a testament to his prolific work.

The church closed the gym in 1969 and the building was then purchased by Donald Hamilton who remodeled the interior, switched out the old St. Joseph’s sign and turned it into a photography studio. Don Hamilton and his team still house their photography and film production firm in the building and offer services that include radio commercials and documentaries, as well as still photography and studio rentals. The original Catholic School sign now adorns the inside of the building and other curios and artifacts from its school days have been found including a radioactive clay jug --this last object was given to the planned Hanford History Museum to safeguard.

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The tribes that lived near the Columbia River were enthusiastic about the "blackrobes" and their teachings. So much so that Father DeSmet, a Jesuit priest from Belgium, wrote his superiors in 1840 that he needed more priests to minister to the local Indian tribes. The Jesuits were known as blackrobes because of the black robes they wore. Father DeSmet made the long journey back to Europe to find the Jesuit priests he needed, and returned five years later with two men: Father Anthony Ravalli and Father Hoecken.

In 1845 the newly arrived Father Rivalli, with the help of local Indians, built a small mission from “rough logs and brush.” In these early years St. Paul's was a seasonal church. Father Ravalli would make the two-day journey from the St. Ignatius Mission in Cusick to St. Paul's during the fishing season to minister to the large gatherings of tribes.

In 1847 a permanent church was built near the temporary building. It featured glass windows and walls covered with white mud, not unlike the nearby Fort Colville. The building served as both a place of worship and living quarters. With two wood-burning stoves, it became possible for a priest to live comfortably at St. Paul's year-round. During his tenure, which lasted until 1851, Father DeVos baptized 491 people, held 123 marriage masses, and shepherded 99 souls to the hereafter.

The 1860s were a time of growth and change in and around St. Paul's. The mission had new stained glass windows installed and the new priest, Father Joset, saw an increase in the population of Catholic settlers. Within the decade two new churches had been built closer to the center of the growing community. In the 1870s the opening of an Indian boarding school in Kettle Falls and the closing of the trading post further reduced the need for St. Paul's. The night of August 14, 1875, the lamps were put out for the last time.

The mission sat forgotten until the 20th century. By 1938 the mission's walls could no longer stand on their own and the roof and floor were gone. Restoration efforts began that year under the leadership of Father George. Working with the local Knights of Columbus, he set out to restore the mission to its former glory. The organization used historic tools and techniques to make the new building match the original as much as possible: They hand-sawed logs and even used reproduction nails and hardware. The Mission today stands on its original quartzite foundation.

In 1951 St. Paul's was gifted to the state of Washington, which transferred ownership to the National Parks Service in 1974. In that same year St. Paul's was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

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The Great Depression plunged the United States into an economic downturn unlike any it had seen before. Spokane was not immune. Workers lost their jobs quickly and the local unemployment rate shot up to twenty-five percent. Even though the local situation was grim, men flocked to Spokane looking for work. Many ended up living in hobo jungles and in shanty towns of cardboard and wood scraps. But not everyone was building shanties. In the midst of the depression one of Spokane’s most famous buildings was constructed, The Rookery.

The Rookery Block was originally home to four buildings that made up a haphazard cluster of businesses, ranging from banks to physicians offices. As Spokane grew, speculators eyed the block as a potential investment but the existing buildings did not meet the needs of a rapidly modernizing city. In 1933, Charles Sweeny, a Civil War veteran turned businessman and aspiring politician, purchased the lots to tear the existing structures down and build something grand in their place.

Undeterred by the depression, Sweeny began construction of the new Rookery Building, completed in 1933. It was an instant hit. According to the Spokane Historic Preservation Office, the Rookery “was the premier Spokane example of terra cotta artistry employing Art Deco design elements.” Designed by Gustav Pehrson, the building had a “horizontal emphasis and stylistic design elements, including floral patterns, starbursts, chevrons and fans.” Although there were hundreds of Art Deco building in town, “high style Art Deco commercial buildings like the Rookery are relatively rare in Spokane.”

Though it had a beautiful debut, the Rookery did not age well. By the 1990s, Tenants were regularly complaining about the condition of the building and the owner was losing patience. In 2006 The Rookery was torn to the ground, to the dismay and anger of many Spokanites. An Inlander article from 2005 captures the frustration, “surface parking lots have spread like lesions across the face of downtown Spokane. Even though it's a ridiculous, inefficient use of land in an urban core, these parking lots, like smallpox scars, tend not to go away.”

Though the Rookery was lost, its destruction marked a turning point in Spokane's attitude towards historic preservation. The Spokane Preservation Advocates, a non-profit organization that advocates for historic preservation, were able to use the emotional lessons learned from the loss of the Rookery to lobby the city council to pass a demolition ordinance. This ordinance prohibits the “removal of historically eligible buildings without a plan to replace them with new structures.” This ordinance has halted the spread of surface parking lots but it cannot stop real estate developers from tearing down 100 year old buildings in favor of modern high rises.

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Tucked away in a corner of this odd-shaped parking lot, behind the historic Frank's Diner, is a sliver of Spokane history. Actually, a large granite block of history.

At the west end of the parking lot is a retaining wall made of mismatched bricks and pieces of salvaged buildings. On the bottom row is a large granite stone with the engraved (and upside down!) letters “MOHA."

This stone was once a part of the facade of the Mohawk Building, which stood on Riverside Avenue between Howard and Stevens. The Mohawk was built in 1915 to replace an earlier building that had been destroyed by fire. The Mohawk was built of terra cotta and brick by architect John K. Dow. It was most notable as the longtime home of one Spokane’s oldest businesses, Dodson’s Jewelers.

In 2007 developers made plans to tear down the Mohawk, and despite outcries from the historic preservation community, the building was razed. Dodson’s Jewelers moved their shop and iconic clock across the street.

Historic photographs of the Mohawk show that this is indeed the same stone that stood over the entrance for nearly 100 years. The Mohawk was demolished in favor of a surface parking lot, but through a quirk of fate one piece still remains--here in another parking lot.

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