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 personal preference caused Chinese and Japanese immigrants to cluster together in neighborhoods called Chinatowns. Known as Front Street, Spokane's "Chinatown" consisted of roughly three blocks in downtown Spokane between today's Spokane Falls Boulevard and Main Avenue. Front Street was later renamed to Trent Alley in 1912. These courtyards and alleys were densely packed with Chinese and Japanese markets, laundries, hotels, and restaurants.

Spokane's Chinatown began in the 1880s and was at first mostly populated by Chinese laborers who had immigrated in the 1850s and 1860s to work in the local railroad and mining industries. Before the Spokane Fire of 1889, Chinatown had a population of around six hundred Chinese. Many Chinese and Japanese businesses were destroyed in the fire, and for the next couple of decades, the population of Chinese residents declined, partly due to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 that prevented Chinese laborers from immigrating and denied recently-arrived Chinese citizenship. In 1894 the ban was renewed and in 1904 it was extended indefinitely until it was repealed in 1943. It was illegal for the wives of Chinese laborers to immigrate to the US in the early 20th century, with only American-born Chinese, notable Chinese, and some merchants allowed to bring their wives with them. This meant that early 20th-century Chinatown consisted primarily of men.

Spokane's white majority viewed Chinatown as an exotic destination that housed many illicit businesses, such as gambling halls, opium dens, and houses of prostitution. Due to previously mentioned immigration restraints, the prostitutes were mainly Japanese who had either been coerced into the profession by gambling men or had arrived with them. In the beginning, the police turned a blind eye to these businesses until non-Chinese patrons began to frequent them. It was only then that the police began a series of raids against the prostitution houses, targeting them.

By 1910, the police raids in Chinatown were welcomed as it had steadily been filling with Japanese families, who now numbered around one thousand. This rise meant that the area was now called Japanese Alley or Trent Alley in addition to Chinatown. By 1912, Japanese restaurants, laundries, hotels, fish markets, barbershops, and pool halls flourished in Trent Alley. The Great Depression hit the district hard however, and many businesses closed as people returned to their native countries, reducing the Japanese population to 385 by 1935. WWII reversed this trend, however, when Spokane became a haven for Japanese families fleeing the threat of Internment camps on the West Coast as it was outside the evacuation zone. Many returned to their homes after the war, but a large number stayed behind.

After the war, the residents of Trent Alley dispersed throughout the city and most of the businesses were deserted. In 1974, the remaining buildings and courtyards were destroyed to facilitate construction for Expo '74. Trent Alley today consists of parking lots for the performing arts and convention centers as well as local businesses, leaving many unaware of the history that lies beneath their feet.

They are not forgotten, however. In 1914, Japanese photographer Ryosuke Akashi captured the lives of Spokane's Japanese entrepreneurs in an album entitled Spokane Japanese Business Men and their Enterprises. Akashi carefully photographed each Japanese business and proprietor, as well as Japanese farmers, Japanese baseball players and a Japanese cemetery. "We are always discriminated based on our race in this foreign place," he wrote. "I would like to share our story."

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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 levels called "terraces", the Japanese cemetery, called the "Bench," is located on the second terrace and includes some of the oldest burial areas of Chinese and Japanese in Greenwood.

Along the hill behind the Japanese cemetery there used to lay a Northern Pacific railroad track and tunnel that had been built in 1910, though they were filled when Expo '74 rerouted the railway line. In this same area there used to be a Chinese cemetery, though that too has since been moved. Chinese workers first showed up in the Spokane area as early as the 1850's and large numbers worked in the local mining and railroad industries. However, Chinese were not allowed to be buried in the same cemeteries as Caucasians, so the Chinese workers were required to have their own. They weren't given headstones, many weren't put in caskets and their names weren't recorded in the Greenwood records; they were only listed as "Chinaman." By 1906 many Chinese had moved out of the area due to difficult conditions, and Chinese fraternal organizations sent groups to disinter their countrymen, put them in caskets and return them to China.

The Japanese community was received better than the Chinese, and their cemetery still exists today in two different locations at Greenwood. There were some Japanese in the Spokane area in the late 1800's, but by 1910 there were more than 1000 Japanese in Spokane. Their numbers declined through the Great Depression, but rose again during WWII as families relocated to the Spokane area to avoid internment camps, since Spokane was outside the boundary line.

To avoid prejudice the Chinese population in the area had faced, the Japanese made sure to include the word 'Japanese' in English on their headstones to keep people from desecrating them. The earlier tombstones tend to look like little obelisks and most have vertical kanji writing. The large Japanese shrine in the cemetery was installed around the turn of the century, and is still used in current Japanese ceremonies to honor the ancestors.

There is a newer Japanese cemetery on the terrace above the Bench terrace, called 'the Top". There you will see memorials to those who fought and died in WWII as well as those commemorating the Japanese community in Spokane. The newer Japanese cemetery is more elaborate than the older one, with cherry blossom trees, decorative gardens and a columbarium.

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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 it to the government so they could build a military post, as the people of Spokane saw the fort as an opportunity for financial growth. This fort was to replace the outdated Fort Spokane, and was originally known as New Fort Spokane. Construction began in 1897, with the official opening in 1899. It was renamed "Fort Wright," in honor of General George Wright, who had been active in the Seminole War, the Mexican War, and the Northwest Indian Wars. The name was changed again in 1908 to "Fort George Wright" to prevent confusion with a different Fort Wright.

Despite the high hopes of the locals, the fort was never fully utilized , and the government declared it surplus and put it up for sale in 1957, with educational facilities given preference. Spokane Falls Community College bought part of the land in 1960 and leveled all of the original structures on their portion. In 1963, the Sisters of the Holy Names purchased the remaining 76 acre for Holy Names College, later renamed Fort Wright College, which operated until 1982.

Once Fort Wright College was closed, the buildings were leased to various organizations until 1990 when they were purchased by the Mukogawa Fort Wright Institute (MFWI). MFWI is a branch campus of Mukogawa Women's University in Nishinomiya, Japan, the Japanese sister city of Spokane. Between 1990 and 2000, various building around the campus have been restored or renovated and 192 trees have been planted, and in 1994 a 20,000 sq. ft. library was built.

In 2010, the Commission on English Language Program Accreditation, a national accrediting agency for English language programs both in the US and abroad, known for its high standards, accredited Mukogawa Fort Wright Institute. Since 1990, over 10,000 students have studied at MFWI, learning the English language and becoming immersed in American culture. Conversely, the Japanese Cultural Center on campus teaches Japanese culture and understanding at schools and festivals around the area.

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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 work as scabs hired to break strikes. A large number of them came to Spokane Falls from Roslyn Washington after the mines there closed in the late 1890s. Railroad jobs were another draw for African Americans to the Spokane Falls area. From 1880 to 1890, Washington's black population increased from 180 to more than 1600, with more than 200 residing in Spokane County.

Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, originally known as St. Pauls AME Church, was first organized in 1890 by Reverend A.C. Augustus, who had been sent up from the California diocese. It was only the second traditionally black church established in Washington State, the first being Calvary Baptist Church which had been started only shortly before, also in Spokane. Bethel AME first gathered in the home of Mrs. D.F.C Washington on South Steven Street. The first pastor was Reverend G.W. White.

Churches often acted as the nucleus of the black community, and Bethel AME Church was no exception. In addition to being a spiritual center, it also served as a political and social focal point, hosting plays, contests, dinners and gatherings. Education was held in high regard, so the church also hosted musical and literary programs. Consequently, many of the pioneering black leaders of Spokane emerged from Bethel AME.

Bethel AME purchased its first lot in 1901 at the corner of Third Avenue and Browne Street and erected a small frame building. A site at Fifth Ave and Pine Street was purchased several years later and the Third and Browne church building was moved to the new location, to be replaced in 1920 by a brick structure at the cost of $17,000. Bethel AME's congregation continued to grow, so the old church at Fifth and Pine was torn down in 1971 and a new one was built at Newark and Laura (now Richard Allen Court), the current location. Bethel AME Church continues to play a large role in promoting social justice and education, as well as helping individuals move from dependency to self-sufficiency with the Emmanuel Family Life Center.

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Transportation is the key to survival for small towns. Harrington is no different, depending first on horses, then trains, then automobiles to bring in visitors and residents. The many businesses that once stood on 9 North Third Street tell the history of the changing face of transportation in Harrington. The Studebaker shop currently occupies this piece of property, one in a long line of automobile businesses in Harrington. It started out in the 1800s as a livery stable, most likely the O.K. Livery Stables owned by the McInnis brothers. When the livery burned down in 1916, a new building was built on the land, and the first business to occupy it was the Harrington Garage.

By the 1940's the Harrington Ford Motor Co, with W.B. Hose acting as mechanic moved into this location. The business continued to change and by the 1960s it had transitioned into the Harrington Motor Co. & Ford Sales. By the 1980s the building had become the Grange Automotive Service, also known as the Grange Auto Service Garage. When that went out of business, the building sat empty for a while before A.J. Barth bought and renovated it in 2011 for his Studebaker shop. Barth now fixes classic Studebakers and services old Fords, giving a nod to the history of the building.

The popular shift from horses to motor cars also affected other businesses in Harrington. Stone pillars were built on either side of the north-central highway in 1930 on the approach to Harrington to welcome visitors. These pillars remain visible today. In the 1960s the first drive-in restaurant, the Buy-n-Bye, was built on the north end of Harrington, along with a Chevron Station nearby. In August of 1970 Harrington received its first blinking red stop light, installed at the corner of Main and Third Street, where highways 28 and 23 intersected, in the hopes that it would be more noticeable than the stop sign that had been there previously.

As the shift to motor cars had an effect on Harrington, so did the highway changes. Designated in 1913, State Route 28 was one of the first cross state highways in Washington. Also known as the Sunset Highway, it runs right through Harrington and brought much needed visitors to the small town. In 1923 it became State Route 7 and was already competing with Route 2 through Davenport as a major roadway for the small towns that littered it landscape. The businesses in Harrington reflected the change and by the 1950s and 1960s, Interstate 90 was created, redirecting traffic around Harrington and taking it off the beaten path.

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