In the heart of Millwood's historic downtown sits Millwood Community Presbyterian Church. The neighborhood participated in services at the former Millwood Community Mission, located in the local school, before the church was finished in 1923. The first service was held in August of that same year, welcoming its neighbors from the surrounding areas including paper mill employees and their families.

The Millwood Presbyterian Church was deeply connected to the mill and remained a vital part of Millwood's community through the twentieth-century. Not only were most of its members mill employees, but the church itself was built on land bought from the Inland Empire Paper Company. Also, the church's cornerstone was donated by the company and placed in the foundation in the fall of 1923. Services were held every week on Sunday, some including special music performances by members of the congregation. Seasonal events, such as Easter, brought the locals together to celebrate at the church. An especially notable example of the church's relationship to the community was shown at the end of WWII, when the church added sixteen gold stars to its service flag for the members of the community that had fallen during the war.

The original church faces south towards Euclid Avenue. It has a brown-brick exterior and brick-lined arches. The brickwork and woodwork remains the same as when it was built, though the windows and doors have been replaced. Additions were introduced throughout the years. A west wing was added in 1927 and a pipe organ was installed ten years later. Add-ons to the structure were built throughout the 40s and 50s. Millwood Community Presbyterian Church still holds services weekly and stands as a link to Millwood's history.

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[Private Residence]

The Rosebush House is one of the best-preserved houses in Millwood. Built in 1923 by Waldo Rosebush, it is a prime example of the French Eclectic architectural style. It also illustrates one of the many new architectural designs that were introduced to the United States by veterans of WWI, replicating the residences they had seen overseas.

Rosebush, the General Manager of the Inland Empire Paper Company, was one of the first paper employees to build his home near the mill. Rumor has it that Rosebush designed the house to convince a young French woman to come back with him to America. Rosebush, however, remained a bachelor for the rest of his life. His two-story home is adorned with false half-timbering, exterior stucco walls, and various casement windows. The interior features 8  ½ foot-high ceilings and beautiful oak and red fir woodwork. The rear of the house has a covered patio and a balcony that looks onto the garden. A fearsome concrete Lucifer-head guards the northeast corner, overlooking a small oval-shaped pond.

Built just south of the house in 1928, the carriage house includes enough living space for hired help. Both the house and carriage house were designed with the assistance of Spokane architect Harold Whitehouse, locally famous for his design of the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist located on the South Hill. With a basement and second floor containing a bathroom, the garage hosts three brick-arched horse stalls. Another feature that makes this home's design truly exceptional, however, is the seventeen-foot tunnel that joins the basement of the house and garage. The design of the main building and the carriage house reflects both Rosebush's inspiration from French cottages during his service in Normandy during WWI, as well as Whitehouse's extensive study of European architecture

Rosebush was an avid gun collector and historian. He wrote several books, including one titled Frontier Steel, about historic men and their weapons. He worked very closely with the Eastern State Historical Society. His home reflects his passion, featuring a lead-lined nine-inch hole in the concrete basement wall used for target practice still containing spent lead shot. Just outside the gun room, the French words "Ils ne passeront pas" are etched into a concrete panel, translated "They will not pass." These words were most likely used to deter trespassers and were probably inspired by the same motto used in France during WWI .

When Waldo Rosebush retired in 1942 from the Inland Empire Paper Company, he was again active in the military during WWII. He eventually moved to Wisconsin, but kept his residency in Millwood. He only returned occasionally to vote and visit the community he considered his home. The Rosebush House remains in immaculate condition and today looks much the same as it did when he owned it in the 1920-30s.

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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 Empire Paper Company in 1910, however, changed the fate of the region. In 1909, W.A. Brazeau who was associated with the Nekoosa-Edwards Paper Company in Wisconsin was on one of his regular commutes to the Northwest. He chanced to pick up a Spokesman Review advertising land for a paper mill on the Spokane River. His interest was piqued and he was quickly able to gain the funding of his associates back east.

Construction of the mill began in 1910, supported by capital from Wisconsin. By 1911, Woodard had been transformed into a company town, creating a new community. The town's name was one of the first things to change. The Inland Empire Paper Company wanted to call the town Milltown, but a combination of the two names was agreed upon by the Woodard family and the company. Thus Millwood was created.

Restaurants, barbershops, and hotels were opened to meet the needs of the company's employees, many of whom were relocated from the Midwest. The paper company encouraged its employees to build homes close to the mill. The Inland Empire Paper Company bought many of the lots surrounding the mill in 1923, in response to the national "Better Homes Movement" of 1922. The company even went so far as to offer an architectural-pattern book for the employees to follow.

Due to its close proximity to Spokane and other Spokane Valley settlements, Millwood never became isolated or exclusive like other company towns. Nevertheless, the mill was the very life of the town. Many social activities were centered around it. The Company built a baseball field, and put together a team every spring. The company also supported the local schools and the Presbyterian Church. A band was even formed in 1923 called the "Paper Makers Band," consisting of mill employees.

In the 1960s and 70s, the town's life slowed down and many of the commercial buildings were vacant. It wasn't until the 1990s that Millwood started to regain its former glory as people who wanted to preserve the history of the town became active in the community. Today, the mill continues to produce paper. The familiar whistle blasts at seven-o-clock, noon, 1:45, and 3:45 every day, continuing the tradition. Millwood maintains a distinct community and remains the only incorporated town in the Spokane Valley.

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This quaint building, known historically in the community as the "Brown Building," has a significant and interesting history in Millwood. The two-story commercial structure was built as a drugstore by George Brown in the early 1920s. In the style of many drugstores during that period, the entrance door is positioned on the southeast corner of the Brown Building, inspiring the building's present-day name, the Corner Door Café. In August of 1925, J. Elbert Tiffin purchased the site and he and his wife opened the town's longest-running pharmacy on the ground floor.

During the early years, Mr. and Mrs. Tiffin resided in the back apartments of the upper level, where Mrs. Tiffin held dinners and luncheons on occasion. Offices in the front portion of the second-story were rented by a Midwestern dentist, Dr. Neil Bayne, brought in by the Inland Empire Paper Company. One community member recalled the terror of dentistry in the early part of the 20th century, remembering the slipping drills and patients fleeing from the office. A doctor, Lyle Bailey, also occupied the southeast portion of the second-story.

Often called Tiffin's Pharmacy throughout the 1920s and 30s, the Millwood Pharmacy was a very neat shop, selling penny candy and gift items along with filling prescriptions for the locals. The pharmacy was also home to a built-in soda fountain which drew in many more customers. Today, a marble countertop replicates the bar where the original soda fountain once stood. The pharmacy was run by Mr. and Mrs. Tiffin, until his death in 1950. Mrs. Tiffin continued to live above the pharmacy for the remainder of her life.

Contributing to Millwood's buzzing social life through the 1960s, the drugstore took a brief turn as an antique shop before being restored as a vital fixture of historic Millwood. Today, the Corner Door Café is a central hub for local history and continues to preserve Millwood's stories and memories.

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