All Stories: 709
Stories
Sort by:
Tohotonimme/Pine Creek/Steptoe Battlefield: Waypoints in the Palouse Tour
This is the Tohotonimme battlefield where on May 17, 1858 a combined force of around 650 Spokan, Palus, and Coeur d' Alene warriors fought against the encroachments of Col. Edward Steptoe and his…
Qualchan Hanging Site: Waypoints in the Palouse Tour
This is the site of a murder.
The 1850s were a violent time in northwest history as a growing tide of American immigrants encroached upon Indian land. In 1855 the first governor of Washington…
The Mullan Road: Waypoints in the Palouse Tour
You are standing near the path of the Mullan Road, the first wagon road across the northern Rocky Mountains.
Since before Lewis and Clark, it was an American dream to establish an effective route…
The Interurban Railroad: Waypoints in the Palouse Tour
All but forgotten today, the Palouse once had its own mass transit--the S&IE Interurban Railway, affectionately known as "the Bug."
As the population of the western states dramatically increased in…
Rosalia,WA: Waypoints in the Palouse Tour
Welcome to Rosalia, Washington, a town whose history is very similar to the other agricultural communities of the Palouse.
Rosalia was first settled in 1872 and was named after the wife of the…
Elephant in the Desert
Even before the dam was complete, Grand Coulee attracted visitors eager to view this unique geological landscape. Once construction started on the dam, sightseers came from all over the world to…
B Street
This quiet street once had a national reputation - for drunkenness and debauchery.
Mason City
In the depths of America's Great Depression, news of a huge construction project in Washington State brought a flood of unemployed men seeking jobs. The "mushroom towns of the Grand Coulee" sprouted…
Good Fishing on the Main Street of Marcus
Once a thriving Columbia River town, the site of Marcus now lies beneath the waters of Lake Roosevelt.
Farmington,WA
Like most towns in Whitman County, Farmington was once a prosperous and rapidly expanding community during the early twentieth century. An abundance of nearby timber and a close water source was what…
Spokane Falls SkyRide: Expo '74 and Riverfront Park Tour - Stop 7
The 1974 World's Fair provided Spokane with an opportunity to reclaim the beauty of Spokane Falls, which had been hidden for years by railroad tracks. In order to provide visitors with the most…
Cold War Thaw: Expo '74 and Riverfront Park Tour - Stop 4
The 1974 World's Fair took place against a backdrop of improving relations between the United States and Soviet Russia. In May of 1972, USSR officials and President Nixon signed an environmental…
Canada Island: Expo '74 and Riverfront Park Tour - Stop 8
Canada Island has had many different names and faces in the last 150 years. Today the island is a part of Riverfront Park and serves as a natural oasis in the middle of downtown. Forty years ago it…
When Nixon Came to the Fair: Expo '74 and Riverfront Park Tour
In May of 1974, an embattled President Richard Nixon visited Spokane to dedicate the 1974 World's Fair against a backdrop of lies, cover-ups, and political drama. By this time, the president was in…
The Father of the Fair: Expo '74 and Riverfront Park Tour - Stop 3
In 1974, a World's Fair helped Spokane remove unsightly railroads from its downtown riverfront and left Riverfront Park in its wake. Spokane was the smallest city to ever host a World's Fair, so it…
The Hamatsa Spirit Totem Pole: Expo '74 and Riverfront Park Tour - Stop 9
The totem pole on snxw mene’ island in Riverfront Park is an original work by the internationally-renowned Canadian artist Joe David. David and his apprentice, artist Frank Charlie (both from the…
Rediscovering the River: Expo '74 and Riverfront Park Tour
How did Spokane get a hundred-acre park right in the middle of downtown? Riverfront Park was once a tangled mess of railroad tresses and industrial overgrowth. During the 1960s it was hard to even…
Bethel AME Church
Spokane has long had a black population, though it started out quite small. Coal mining jobs drew large numbers of African Americans to Washington State in the 1880s, though often when they found…
Spokane Buddhist Temple
Early Spokane had more ethnic and religious diversity than we often realize. Many Japanese immigrants were drawn to Eastern Washington's railroad and mining jobs in the late 1800s and early 1900s. …
Mukogawa Fort Wright Institute
Towards the end of the 19th century, the United States government was looking to build a fort in the inland Northwest. In 1895, Spokane residents purchased land in the Twickenham Park area and deeded…
Greenwood Memorial Terrace Japanese Cemetery
Organized on May 11, 1888, Greenwood Memorial Terrace is the oldest of the community cemeteries in Spokane. It is also the most extensive, encompassing one hundred and sixty acres divided into three…
Spokane's Chinatown
In the late 1800s, the fast-growing city of Spokane attracted immigrants from all over the world, including China and Japan. As in other American cities, a combination of anti-Asian prejudice and…
Damming the Columbia: MAC 100 Stories: A Centennial Exhibition
Talk of a Columbia River dam began in arid Ephrata, Washington in 1917, when city leaders met to discuss ways to boost wartime food production. If glacial dams once plugged the river, they argued, why…
The Palouse: MAC 100 Stories: A Centennial Exhibition
A homesteader wrote of the Palouse in the 1880s: "Its beauty was wild and untrammeled and the undulating hills were covered with luxuriant grasses." Bunchgrasses and wildflowers created a lush meadow,…
Outdoor Play: MAC 100 Stories: A Centennial Exhibition
"Near Nature. Near Perfect." The tourism motto of Visit Spokane highlights outdoor recreation, an Inland Northwest passion for more than a century. Short winters, dry climate and a yearly average of…
From Temperance to Microbrews: MAC 100 Stories: A Centennial Exhibition
Temperance activist Carrie Nation of Kansas was famous for smashing saloons with a hatchet in the days before Prohibition. Before Nation's 1910 visit to Spokane, the mayor ordered saloon-goers to…
Walla Walla: MAC 100 Stories: A Centennial Exhibition
On April 30, 1806, the Corps of Discovery "took leave of those honest people the Wallahwallahs," Meriwether Lewis noted in his diary. Other important moments of Western settlement in Walla Walla would…
Spokane House: MAC 100 Stories: A Centennial Exhibition
Spokane House was Washington state's first fur-trading post and home to Jaco Finlay, a clerk for the North West Company of Montreal. The son of a Scottish trader and an American Indian "country wife,"…
Taking Flight: MAC 100 Stories: A Centennial Exhibition
In 1929, aviator Nick Mamer and mechanic Art Walker held the Spokane Sun-God aloft for five days and nights - America's first nonstop, round-trip transcontinental flight. Refueling in the air was the…
Spokane's Baseball Indians: MAC 100 Stories: A Centennial Exhibition
Spokane's minor league baseball team, known since 1903 as the Spokane Indians, unveiled a new logo in 2006 with the blessing of the Spokane Tribe of Indians. Teams with Indian nicknames, logos,…