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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. …
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.
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…
B Street
This quiet street once had a national reputation - for drunkenness and debauchery.
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Steptoe Butte: Waypoints in the Palouse Tour
A winding fifteen minute drive up to the top of Steptoe Butte offers some of the most breathtaking views in Eastern Washington. On a clear day, visitors are greeted by a panoramic view of nearly the…
Grand Coulee Dam: Electricity for Jackrabbits
Larger than all of the Pyramids of Giza put together, this mammoth concrete structure began as a dream in a small arid Central Washington farm town. In 1918, Billy Clapp, a lawyer in Ephrata,…
Ghost Town of Elberton: Waypoints in the Palouse Tour
The towns of the Palouse followed similar patterns of early growth as white settlers flooded into the area, followed by a long and gradual decline with the greater mechanization of farming. Some…
Deep Creek School
The Deep Creek school was built in 1905, to replace an earlier, one-room schoolhouse that stood at the same spot.
The town of Deep Creek was founded in 1883 as Deep Creek Falls. An 1889 guide for…
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…
Western Spokane Historic Transportation Corridor
Of the eighty-seven ghost signs in the greater Spokane area, ninety percent are within two blocks of Sprague Avenue (once known as U.S.10) and the Northern Pacific Railroad, in an area known as the…
Welcome to Fort Spokane
As Washington Territory began to grow and attract more settlers looking to make a better life, conflicts between settlers and Indian tribes escalated. Unlike the fixed settlements of pioneers, who…
Frederick/Longbotham Building: Ghost Signs of Spokane Tour - Story 16
Like many buildings in the East Downtown Historic District, the Frederick/Longbotham building speaks to Spokane's past through the many faded advertisements still visible on its exterior.
At the…
The Blossoms of Spokane's Fruit
This unassuming building is a reminder of Spokane's important early history as the center of a fruit-growing region, and also of the many brick warehouses that once dominated the eastern edge of the…
Merlin Hotel: The Place For You
The faded sign at the top of this building, The New Merlin Hotel-tells two stories. One is the story of pioneering women business owners; the other is of the slow decline of a neighborhood.
Walldogs: The Men Who Painted the Ghost Signs
Painting advertisements on the sides of tall buildings was dangerous work--in more ways than one.