All Stories: 705
Stories
Whitworth University Fieldhouse: A House For Indoor Sports
The official announcement came in late July of 1961; Whitworth College was getting a fieldhouse. Dr. Frank F. Warren, president at the time, broke the exciting news to the college after a luncheon in which Mr. C. Davis Weyerhaeuser of Tacoma, WA, a…
Eric A. Johnston: The Science Building
In the fall of 1966 at Whitworth College in Spokane, the Eric Johnston Science Center was dedicated in honor of Eric Johnston and the legacy he left behind. This $1.1 million project used to be home to departments of biology, chemistry, geology, and…
Dixon Hall
Dixon Hall is a familiar building to all Whitworth students, both current and past. It was built as a classroom building and completed in 1957. Containing 18 classrooms, the building has supported the School of Education and the Department of…
Diana Marks Field: The Home to Whitworth's Softball Team
Conveniently located just below the Whitworth Pine Bowl and adjacent to the Whitworth Soccer field is Diana Marks field, home of the Whitworth Softball team. This field was made available for use beginning in spring of 2000. Considered to be a…
The Harriet Cheney Cowles Memorial Libary
The Harriet Cheney Cowles Memorial Library is one of the most important buildings on Whitworth University’s campus. It was named after Harriet Cheney Cowles after she passed away in 1938. To honor her legacy, her husband, William H. Cowles Sr., and…
Cowles Memorial Auditorium
Cowles Auditorium is the university's center of theatrical and performance-based endeavors and is one of three buildings on Whitworth's campus that bears the Cowles family name. Specifically the auditorium is named after William H. Cowles…
Seely G. Mudd Chapel: Whitworth's Home for God
Much has changed from the original Whitworth University chapel days where attendance was mandatory, knitting could get you reprimanded and a headline in the newspaper, and politics were debated openly. Now home to faculty-guided and student-led…
Ballard Hall: Out of the Ashes, a New Building Rises
Ballard Hall is home to about 66 young women, forming part of the historic community with McMillan Hall, known on campus as "BMAC". Ballard is a hall known for its rich history and long standing traditions, as well as a close sisterhood and…
The Ball and Chain Lane: The Homes for Married Students
Hidden in the eastern corner of Whitworth campus, located behind the HUB where the parking lot currently is, stood a collection of residences once known as College Homes. These apartments came to be given the sardonic name of Ball and Chain Lane…
Stewart Hall: Honors Whitworth's Most Important Early President
Home to thirty-five men and thirty-five women on two floors, Stewart Hall was built in 1963. Initially, Stewart served as an all men’s dormitory. It was dedicated in honor of Calvin W. Stewart who was instrumental in Whitworth's early history. …
Robinson Science Building: The Science Building for the 21st century
The William P. and Bonnie V. Robinson Science Hall was dedicated on Homecoming weekend in October of 2011. This three story, 63,000 square foot state of the art facility cost Whitworth University $32,000,000 to build and contains top-of-the-line…
“She Said She Had Always Wanted to Be a Whore”
Kate, a young, blushing bride, married W.P. Horton on September 21, 1861 in Walla Walla County in Washington Territory. W.P. promised “to be to her a good, kind, faithful, and affectionate husband,” and Kate “to make him a kind, faithful, and…
The Death of Bill Jackson
Bill Jackson was born to a French-Canadian father and Indian mother on Moran Prairie, to the south-east of the Spokane Falls. During his childhood, Billy was abandoned by his father, leaving his mother to raise him and his two brothers alone.…
Bill Jackson: The Story of a Mixed-Race Indian in Early Spokane
Sometime around 1860, Billy Jackson was born on the southeastern portion of Moran Prairie (near 57th Street on the modern-day South Hill). His father was a French-Canadian who had come west in the fur trade, his mother was Indian. The father…
The Sanchez Family: Undocumented Immigrants Prospering in the Yakima Valley
In 1885, the Northern Pacific Railway arrived in the Yakima Valley and attracted immigrants from all over the world. Yakima and nearby towns experienced rapid growth. Early twentieth century Yakima Valley consisted of orchards, hop fields, and…
Early African-American Pioneers in Spokane
In the 1880s Spokane grew from waves of immigration. Though white individuals were the majority, the city soon developed other minority populations. Along with the more famous Chinatown, Spokane had its own small African American community.
In…
The Shuttleworths of Fort Colville
Frontier Washington was full of surprising and unexpected character, but perhaps none more so than Henry Shuttleworth.
Shuttleworth was born in Bengal, India around 1837, the son of a colonial indigo farmer. While his youth is largely unknown,…
Alberto Ricardo: Walla Walla’s First Mexican Success Story
To many early white settlers, “Mexican” was synonymous with criminal. In 1867, the Walla Walla Statesman Review published several editorials, which, defined Mexicans as deceitful, jealous, and fickle. The Walla Walla Statesman editorialized that…
The Mistress on the Saloon Roof
“I stepped round to the next room and found Bertie Rockhold out on the shed room being the roof of the Saloon Building…” So Bell Ford testified in 1889 as she recounted her husband’s cheating ways. Her husband, B.M. Ford, had been treating her…
Hospital of the Sacred Heart: Spokane's First Medical Facility
In the late 1870s through the late 1880s, surgeries ranging from amputations of limbs to emergency tracheotomies were performed in either the patient’s home or the doctor’s office. Known as “kitchen table surgeries,” these prodedures often led to…
A Frontier Doctor Rides into Rockford
The early Spokane region lacked qualified medical doctors. In frontier towns, anyone could nail a diploma on the wall and begin treating patients. Townspeople saw having a skilled doctor as important as a saloon or newspaper for the growth of their…
Locked Up For Life
On July 1, 1899, Susan Glover returned to her new home at this spot to find all of her belongings out on the sidewalk. Glover was locked out of the house she had just bought.
Glover's former husband, James Glover, was the city's most…
A Hospital For Washington's Insane
Eastern Washington Hospital for The Insane opened in 1891. The first 122 patients were transfers from Western Washington Hospital for The Insane.
The hospital represented a break in the way that the mentally ill were cared for in Washington. The…
The Steamboat Forty-Nine
The population of the Upper Columbia Country exploded when gold was discovered along the banks of the Columbia River and its tributaries in the early 1850s. The first gold boom, the Colville Gold Strike, drew prospective miners from all over the…
The Boundary Commission
The United States-Canadian border in the Pacific Northwest is clearly marked and border agents at defined crossing points regulate movement from one side to the other. This system is the direct result of the hard work done by the United States and…
Riverside Park Wastewater Treatment Plant
The Spokane River is a vital resource that has attracted humans to the region for thousands of years. The river has provided food and fresh water for generations, but the arrival of white settlers in the late 1800s presented a substantial challenge…
Spokane Stockyards
It was the end of an era when Stockland Union Stockyards closed in 1999. Just off of North Freya, the area had been home to stockyards since 1915, when the Spokane Union Stockyards opened under the direction of brothers John H. and Walter D.…
Dick's Hambugers
Dick’s Drive-in is an iconic Spokane business. The drive up parking, the open air counter and the buildings silhouette call back to the googie architecture of a 1960’s California Drive-In. On the sign a panda holds a hamburger that is being pecked…
Robert Reid Lab School
The Robert Reid Lab School started as a training school in 1908 where college students did student teaching with elementary students from the community. This was important because the normal schools purpose was to train teachers. In 1937 when…
Cheney's Masonic Temple
Like many of the commercial structures in downtown Cheney, the Masonic Temple has had many tenants and uses over the decades.
Two influential architects of the 19th century, Kirtland Cutter and Karl Malmegren, designed the building in 1910 for…