Featured Stories: 68
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Working Women of the Silver Valley
Not all the wealth of Wallace came from the mines. Some came from bedrooms of the working women of the brothels like the Oasis or the Bi-Metallic. As the miners extracted the ore from the ground, the…
Willie Willey: Spokane's Nature Boy: Short on clothes but long on intrigue
Short on clothes but long on intrigue, Willie Willey and his choice in dress (or lack thereof) made an impression on twentieth century Spokane. Born in 1884, Willis (Willie) Willey grew up in Iowa…
Whistalks Way: Fort George Wright Drive Renamed Whistalks Way
After Colonel Edward Steptoe's defeat by local Native tribes, Colonel George Wright was sent to avenge the U.S. military. Wright's murderous rampage resulted in a street sign memorial in his name.…
Washington State Archives, Digital Archives
Opening in 2004, the Washington State Archives Building was created to house both the Eastern Washington Regional Archives and both state and local government Digital Archives. It was the first…
Violet Noble, Resident Since the 1940s
"We didn't like the things they did and they didn't like the things we did."
Born in Meridian, Mississippi in 1927, Violet Noble came to the East Central neighborhood during the growth period of…
Trent Alley: Spokane's Original Melting Pot
In 1913, the east side of Spokane's downtown teemed with small businesses run by Japanese, Chinese, Italian, Greek and German immigrants. Their restaurants, laundries and baths, barber shops, hotels,…
The Wednesday Art Club: Black Spokane's Leading Cultural Organization
The Wednesday Art Club of Spokane was much more than an art club. The African-American women-lead organization gave back to a city that did not always recognize them.
The Spokane Mountaineers: From Walking to Summiting
Beginning as a group of active librarians, the Spokane Walking Club evolved to become the Spokane Mountaineers
The Segregated South Hill: William H. Cowles, Jr.'s push for an all-white neighborhood
How one prominent Spokanite used racial discrimination to promote his real estate empire.
The River Pigs of Logging: Logging on the River
Logging Companies used rivers and lakes to move logs from the logging camps to the mills. The brave men that guided the logs on the journey were called the River Pigs.
The Pirates Den: An African American Owned and Operated Harlem Renaissance-Style Dine and Dance Club
During the time of segregation in the Spokane area, one club owned and operated by an African American wrote their own history one dance and one meal at a time.
The Parsons Hotel: The historic Parsons Hotel has known good times and bad, mirroring the rest of downtown Spokane
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…
The Hotel Aberdeen: and Carrie Harris
In a time before women had the right to vote, Carrie Harris was financially independent and a successful businesswoman.
The Great Fire of 1889
When the territory of Washington became a state in 1889, the city of Spokane Falls was one of its largest and most successful cities. Attracting wealthy businessmen who had stakes in the nearby Idaho…
The Ghost Town of Burke
Nestled in a cramped canyon seven miles from historic Wallace, are the decaying remnants of the once-booming mining town that was built to house the miners of the Hecla, Hercules, Tiger-Poorman, and…
The Formidable May Hutton
In 1883, orphan May Arkwright moved to Idaho from Ohio where she worked as a saloon cook and opened up her own boarding house, where she quickly gained a reputation as the "best cook in the Coeur…
The Evolution of Sunset Field: How the United States Military Repurposed Spokane’s Airfield
When the United States was pulled into World War Two thousands of American businesses were repurposed to better support the war effort. It was this direct response to an overseas threat that…
The Corbin Ditch
The main challenge for farming in the Spokane Valley was supplementing the meager local rain fall with manmade irrigation systems. Gravity ditches, such as the Corbin Ditch, formed the core of early…
The Cheney Lynchings: Mob violence or ethnic cleansing?
In the early 1880s two men were hanged without trial, one Chinese and the other a Spokane Indian.
The Chamberlin House: The work of a forgotten Spokane builder.
In the early years of the 20th century, Gilbert Chamberlin and his son Ernest created much of the West Central neighborhood.
The Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist
In the 1920s, Episcopal Bishop Edward Makin Cross endeavored to create a successor to the All Saints Cathedral, which stood Downtown. He contracted the services of congregation member Harold C.…
The Arrival of the Paper Mill at Woodard
Originally called Woodard, or Woodard Station, after the family who owned the land on either side of the tracks, the district that is now Millwood was a little railroad town. The arrival of the Inland…
The “Invisible Empire” on Riverside Ave: The KKK of the 1920s and 1930s in Spokane
During the 1920s and 1930s, Spokane's Riverside Avenue was more than a bustling hub of downtown commerce—it was also a shadowy stronghold for the Ku Klux Klan. Behind unassuming office doors, the…
Taft: The Wickedest City in America
By the early 1900s, the rough and tumble frontier towns of America were dying off, slowly becoming gentrified and developed into respectable settlements. Taft, Montana was one town that wasn't going…
Susan Crump Glover:
First Wife of James Nettle Glover: Notable for Her Absence in Local History
Susan Crump Glover moved to Spokane Falls with her husband, James, in August 1873. Even though there is much historical information about James—the Father of Spokane—there is a curious lack of…
Spokane’s Red Tail: Spit Fire, Jack D. Holsclaw
Born and raised in Spokane, Jack D. Holsclaw spent World War II flying as a Tuskegee airman.
Spokane's Trolley Cars
The steel rails that still peek through the pavement here and there in Spokane remind us of the days of trolley cars. At one time, the tracks that lay before you carried Spokanites to work, shops,…
Spokane Valley Heritage Museum/Opportunity Township Hall
You are looking at one of the last physical remnants of the now defunct "Township" form of government in Washington. A state vote in 1908 granted the formation of County Townships as semi-autonomous,…
Spokane University
During the boom years of early Spokane, colleges and academic institutions began to pop up around the city. Spokane University was among the first universities in Spokane and the first in the valley,…
Spokane Shows Its Pride: “We’re Here. We’re Queer. We’re Fabulous- Get Used To It!”
In 1992, Spokane’s first pride march moved forward under restriction and threat, as participants took to the sidewalks to demand visibility in a city that had yet to make space for them.