Spokane, Washington

“ It requires no very profound knowledge of Western geography, no very lengthy study of the State of Washington, to enable anyone to understand without difficulty some of the minor reasons why Spokane Falls should become a great and important city, the metropolis of a vast surrounding country. A glance at the map will show the mountain range that extends up through the Idaho Panhandle, and then along the British Columbia frontier, to the east and north of the city. ”

“ The greater part of the population of Spokane is native born, less than 20 per cent claiming foreign birth. Second-generation national groups are, however, well-represented — Irish, Germans, and Scandinavians in particular, and Italians, Greeks, Scots, and French to a lesser extent. Among racial minorities are 1,000 Negroes, most of whom are engaged in service trades; a few score Chinese in restaurants, laundries, and truck farming; a number of Indians, who wander in and out of the city; and some Japanese. ”

“ Trade in the Kootenay District of British Columbia antedated the building of Astoria by three and a half years, and that in the Flathead Country of Montana by one and a half years, and that at Spokane, Washington, by at least six months. The cities that have become the commercial centers of these interior districts have not been built upon the exact sites of the early trading posts unless that may be said as to Spokane, Washington, but have all been built along the same established Indian trails or roads, and these have become the transcontinental railroads of today. ”

“ It was evident from every sign that we were nearing the arid belt of eastern Washington, the great semi-desert plateau that is looped in the bend of the Columbia between the mouth of the Spokane and the mouth of the Snake. The towering split crest of Mitre Rock marked the approach to the slack stretch of water backed up by the boulder barrage over which tumbles Spokane Rapids. The run through the latter was to be our real baptism; a short rapid passed a few miles above proving only rough enough to set the raft rolling in fluent undulations and throw a few light gobs of spray over her “bows.” ”

“ This sturdy young giant of the North arises from her ashes stronger, more attractive, more substantial, than before. And there is abundant reason for solid faith in the future of Spokane Falls.
It is the metropolis of a region 200,000 square miles in extent, including 50,000 square miles of Washington, or all that portion east of the Cascade Mountains, more than half of Idaho, the northern and eastern portions of Oregon, a large part of Montana, and as much of British Columbia as would make a State as large as New York. ”

“ Work is in charge of Spokane House, the Hudson's Bay Company Trading Post located near the present city of Spokane, and his journal relates the day-to-day occurrences there, the arrival of the express from across the Rocky Mountains, the starting off of the clerk going to the Kootenay District for the winter, etc. On the 14th of November Mr. Work leaves Mr. Birnie at Spokane House and himself starts off for his winter station at Flathead Post or Fort on the Clark Fort of the Columbia. ”

“ In the center of all this immense territory is located Spokane Falls, like the hub in the center of a wheel. The word immense is not used unwittingly, for the mountains and plains and valleys make up a country that in Europe would be called a nation, and in New England would form a State. Only a far-off corner of the Union, it may seem to some readers, yet there are powerful empires which possess less natural resources than it can call its own. ”

“ The mountains are visible either to the north or the east. They are neither as lofty nor as rugged as the Cascades and Olympics, but they are nevertheless beautiful. The highest peak in eastern Washington is Mount Spokane, 5,808 feet, twenty miles northeast of the city. From its summit one may look out into the three northwestern states of Oregon, Idaho and Washington, and into the province of British Columbia; and count seventeen different lakes and rivers. ”

“ From the city of Spokane all corners of the Inland Empire are easily reached. Five transcontinental lines enter the city and two others operate trains; while a network of electric lines serves the immediate vicinity, penetrating the territory as far south as Colfax, Palouse, and Moscow; southwest to Medical Lake and Cheney; and eastward to Hayden Lake and Coeur d'Alene. Highways have been built through the most scenic sections along the river valleys and up into the mountains. Each mode of transportation unfolds a different panorama. ”

“ The Spokane Division of the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern Railway, extending from Spokane westwardly, a distance of forty-five miles, is practically finished; trains are running regularly, and as soon as our motive-power and cars can be disengaged from the work of "ballasting" we will be able to do considerable business. ”

“ SPOKANE FALLS
is one of those miracles possible only in the alert, aggressive West. When Mr. Hayes was inaugurated it was a blank wilderness. Not a single civilized being lived within a hundred miles of it. One day in 1878 a white man came along in a "bull team," saw the wild rapids and the mighty falls of the Spokane River, reflected on the history of St. Paul and Minneapolis with their little Falls of St. Anthony, looked at the tide of immigration just turning toward the farther Northwest, and concluded he would sit right down where he was and wait for a city to grow around him. ”

“ Set out at 11 oclock on our return to Spokane & encamped at 7 at the Big Camass plain. [167]
Left directions with Mr Dears to keep the men at work a few [Pg 167] days longer to have the timber for the store all in readiness to be put up in the spring if another situation does not be fixed upon. There is no other convenient spot near the fishing at the falls on which to build a fort. It will be necessary to call home the men to put the houses, etc., at Spokane in order to pass the winter.—Mr Dears is to be in readiness to proceed up the Pendent Oreville River when the men are called home. ”

“ The population on the whole is relatively stable, partly perhaps because the city has drawn to it from surrounding agricultural areas farmers who have disposed of their property or who have turned it over to the management of children or renters. Drifting through the city, however, are thousands of migratory workers, mostly single men, who find seasonal employment in mines and in lumber camps and on the farms.
In the early decades of the nineteenth century, this region, the Inland Empire, was the domain of the Spokane and other Indian bands, whose control was as yet not openly challenged. ”

“ It will be readily seen how great an area and what vast resources Spokane Falls claims as tributary to itself in Washington. But there remains to be added the rich mineral regions of Coeur d'Alene and Kootenai. There may and will build up rival cities in the Colville and Big Bend countries, at no very distant day; but the pan-handle of Idaho does not seem adapted to such designs, at least in its northern end, therefore Spokane
seems quite sure of a share in the wealth being extracted from its mines. ”

“ Captain Armstrong left by train for Nelson the evening of the 27th, and the following morning Major Laird drove Roos and me back to Gerome. For a considerable part of the distance we followed the highly picturesque route along the Spokane River, stopping for lunch at the hydro-electric plant of the Washington Power Company at Long Lake. This enterprising corporation has power installations already in operation on the Spokane which must make that stream pretty nearly the most completely harnessed river of its size in America. ”

“ In all directions around Colville and Kettle Falls, up the Sans Poil and Kettle rivers, are opening mines and farms, one of the most promising sections of all the promising State of Washington. Time forbids us to visit all the lakes in this wonderful lake section. But we must see the most important. While at Spokane, we should not fail to go, by trolley or train or auto or horseback, to the greatest of all Spokane resorts, Cœur d'Alene Lake. ”

“ It is now just one year since I left Washington Territory, and I am glad to be able to report,Rapid growth of Seattle and Spokane Falls. on the best authority, that the great interests heretofore described have progressed, some of them with accelerating speed. The city of Seattle has added 10,000 to her population, and Spokane Falls 5,000 to hers.
Mining has spread its area, multiplied its diggings, and gone forward at every point amazingly. ”

“ November 24.—Ascended the Columbia River by steamer, with six miles of portage, to the Dalles, where I took the Northern Pacific train for Spokane Falls, having daylight from Pasco Junction.
November 25.—Nothing could be more unjust to the country than the location of the Northern Pacific Railroad, which runs most of the way to Spokane Falls in a coulée (or dry river bed) , which completely hides most of the farming land from the traveler. ”

“ Spokane has a valuable collection of Indian objects and wares in the Eastern Washington State Historical Society; and there are similar exhibits at the Conner Museum in Pullman and at the Washington State Historical Society in Tacoma. The Whitman College Museum, in Walla Walla, displays Indian objects and a historical collection drawn from the period of white settlement.
Although commonly associated with the remote past and with musty relics, the handicrafts are far from dead today; they survive as important activities both among the Indian and white populations. ”

“ One of several creeks entering Spokane river from the south. The road from Spokane House to the Forks evidently followed the south side of Spokane River very closely.
[284] The boats that had been built at Spokane House during the winter; the Little Dalles are the gorge at Miles. Lincoln County, Wash.
[285] John McLeod. Chief Trader, on his way to cross the Rocky Mts., Francis Ermatinger, a clerk, and David Douglas, the botanist from England. For contemporaneous mention of this meeting consult pp. 334-5 of Vol. 5 of Oregon Hist. Quarterly, being Journal of David Douglas. ”

“ In 1910 building permits totaled an all-time high of $8,766,226, the largest single building being the 15-story Old National Bank, Spokane's first skyscraper. Throughout these years population was increasing with extraordinary rapidity. ”

“ Walla Walla county was afterwards divided and we became a part of Spokane county, with the county seat located at Fort Colville. We remained a part of Spokane county until December 14, 1860, when the legislature of Washington Territory divided the county of Spokane and created the county of Missoula, with the county seat at or near the trading post of Worden & Co., Hell’s Gate Ronde. ”

“ Mr. J. W. Dease, who had been in charge of Fort Walla Walla, but was being transferred to Spokane House, but is delayed waiting for Peter Skene Ogden's arrival from the Snake Country of Southern Idaho.
[187] Mr. Work is assigned to spend the winter at the trading post among the Flathead Indians in Montana. The "portage" refers to the 76 miles over which they must carry the trading goods on pack animals between Spokane House and the Pend d'Oreille river. ”

“ The population is confined mainly to the Puget Sound region and the southeastern part of the State. There is a rather large urban population, the aggregate number of those in towns of over 4000 inhabitants in 1900 amounting to 36.4 per cent. of the total population. Seattle and Spokane almost doubled their population between 1890 and 1900, the former having in 1900 80,671 and the latter 36,848 inhabitants. ”

“ Eastern Washington may be described as a vast rolling plain, traversed in all directions by rivers and creeks, the principal of which is the Columbia, having for its tributaries in this Territory the Snake, Spokane, Walla Walla, Winachee, Okinakane, Yakima, and Klickitat, with many of minor importance. ”

“ I'm not soft and trivial, am I! Praise!"
She had driven through the panhandle of Idaho into Washington, through Spokane, through the writhing lava deposits of Moses Coulee where fruit trees grow on volcanic ash. Beyond Wenatchee, with its rows of apple trees striping the climbing fields like corduroy in folds, she had come to the famous climb of Blewett Pass. Once over that pass, and Snoqualmie, she would romp into Seattle.
⁠She was sorry that she hadn't come to know Milt better, but perhaps she would see him in Seattle. ”

“ At the end of the eighteenth century the population of the Western country was about as great as the population of the State of Washington at the end of the nineteenth, and Washington is distinctly a pastoral and agricultural State, a State of men who chop trees, herd cattle, and till the soil, as well as trade; but in Washington great cities, like Tacoma, Seattle, and Spokane, have sprung up with a rapidity which was utterly unknown in the West a century ago. Nowadays when new States are formed the urban population in them tends to grow as rapidly as in the old. ”

“ It would appear from these notes, that the best lands of Eastern Washington are not immediately along the Columbia, at any part of its whole course, but rather upon the upper portion of its tributaries, and upon tributaries of its tributaries, as the Walla, the Yakima, the Spokane, the Okinikane, and numerous other smaller streams, with their branches. The great plain of the Columbia occupies a central position with regard to these, and is a country in some parts worthless, and in others, fit only for grazing. ”