Reardan, a Lincoln County farm town 23 miles west of Spokane, was founded in 1889 when the Central Washington Railway arrived and established a station named after C. F. Reardan, the line's construction engineer. The town soon became an important grain-shipping and flour-milling center for the surrounding wheat fields. The population grew to about 600 and the town was incorporated in 1903. Reardan survived two crippling fires, one in 1913 and one in 1926. The population stagnated through the mid-twentieth century as farms became more efficient and required fewer farm hands. In the latter part of the twentieth century, Reardan began to grow, partly because of its proximity to Spokane and Fairchild Air Force Base. In later decades, travelers on U.S. Highway 2 were attracted to Reardan Audubon Lake, the nearby Inland Northwest Rail Museum, and the town's annual celebration, Mule Days.
Fairweather First
In the town's earliest days, it wasn't called Reardan at all. It was called Fairweather, first platted in 1882 on land in the southeastern quarter of today's Reardan "east of Aspen Street and south of Columbia Avenue" ("Hardy Folks Built Reardan"). Yet Fairweather was destined to be a town "in name only," although it briefly had a store, a hotel, and a blacksmith shop (Steele and Rose, 169). When a spur of the Northern Pacific Railroad, called the Central Washington Railway, arrived in 1889, the timetables listed the station as Reardan. The station was named after Charles Fairfax Reardan (1854-1914), the line's esteemed chief construction engineer. The name stuck, and the Spokane Falls Review first called the town Reardan on July 3, 1889.
Yet the story of Reardan stretches back thousands of years before it acquired that name. The site of Reardan is in the heart of the Spokane Tribe's historic territory and was part of the tribe's hunting and gathering lands for millennia. It is about 14 miles south of the tribe's traditional salmon camp on the Little Falls of the Spokane River, and it was on or near the tribe's network of trails going to and from those and other camps to the east and west. Because of the future town's large pond and wetlands – now called Reardan Audubon Lake – the area was undoubtedly used at times as a tribal hunting and gathering spot for roots, berries, and waterfowl eggs, as well as an attractive stopping point for people going from camp to camp. Yet a 2015 survey showed no "recorded traditional [tribal] cultural properties" in the Reardan area ("Swanson Lakes and Revere Wildlife Areas …").
White settlers began arriving in the Reardan vicinity in the late 1870s and early 1880s. These settlers were cattlemen and farmers, attracted to the prolific bunchgrass and the relatively green meadows of Crab Creek, whose headwaters sprang from Reardan Audubon Lake, as well as to good farmland north toward the Spokane River. The early nearby settlers included the William H. Childs (1856-1928) and Henry Harder (1841-1924) families, and the first settler to live in the present site of Reardan was John Wickham (1844-1925). With a growing influx of farmers and ranchers, Cheney residents William F. Hooker and John W. Still believed the site – nestled between Spokane to the east and Davenport to the west – had a bright future. They platted the town of Fairweather, but it failed to thrive. By 1887, a traveler reported that Fairweather "is now defunct … this is the dullest town we have struck" ("Hardy Folks Built Reardan"). Only one of its five buildings was occupied.
New Name, New Era
That all changed in 1889 when the locomotives of the newly constructed Central Washington Railway first whistled into town. The line ran from Cheney to Davenport and beyond. This inaugurated a new era, and a new name, for the town. Reardan was the name emblazoned on the new railway depot. There is no evidence that Charles Reardan ever lived in his namesake town, but his wife would later say that having the town named after him was "the pride of Mr. Reardan's heart" (Letter from Mrs. C. F. Reardan).
Pioneer Lincoln County historians Richard F. Steele and Arthur P. Rose reported that "a lively business" had now sprung up in Reardan, with the new depot as the centerpiece (Steele and Rose, 170). The rail agent was C. A. Pearce, who built his family a home in 1889, "the first in town" (Steele and Rose, 170). The presence of a rail line, connecting the town with the growing statewide web of tracks, guaranteed that Reardan would not meet the fate of Fairweather.
A flurry of construction began in the summer of 1889. August M. Olson built a new store in Reardan and moved his stock from the old Fairweather site. That same year, J. S. Capps, who was postmaster of a post office at his ranch a mile to the north, moved his post office into the new town. For that reason, Reardan was briefly known as Capps, although the postal service would soon switch the name over to Reardan. In the fall of 1889, Reardan's downtown began taking shape. James Brand opened a second general store, A. W. Childs opened a drugstore, and A. Lutzhoft opened a farm and ranch implement business.
Yet Reardan was still in its infancy. Steele and Rose estimated that "not to exceed twelve or fifteen people passed the winter in the town of Reardan" in 1889 to 1890 (Steele and Rose, 170). The 1890 federal census showed a population of only 31, but it was growing rapidly. By 1891, Reardan had acquired two more general stores, a furniture store, a saloon, two hotels, a barber shop, two butcher shops, a blacksmith shop, and a boot-and-shoe store. Then came the nationwide financial Panic of 1893. For the next several years, growth stagnated because "the town depended entirely on its agricultural resources," and the panic had taken a toll on the nearby farmers and ranchers (Steele and Rose, 170). In 1893, a Reardan correspondent for The Spokane Weekly Review reported that "grain-buyers here decline to buy at any price … there is no export market" ("Decline to Buy Grain").
"Rapidly to the Front"
By the late 1890s, the farmers and ranchers had seen a rebound and "Reardan came rapidly to the front" (Steele and Rose, 170). The town had an elementary school and high school, following a successful school-district bond issue. The year 1899 was "the most prosperous one" in the town's brief history (Steele and Rose, 170). The town's first bank, the Reardan Exchange Bank, opened for business that year. The town's new prosperity was symbolized by the towering smokestack of the Washington Grain & Milling Company's new flouring mill. Within three years, it was turning out 400 barrels of flour a day from the productive dry-land wheat farms that surrounded Reardan. The mill made "the best grades of wheat … on account of having this wheat so near the mill plant," and had a yearly payroll of $12,000 (Washington Grain & Milling Company advertisement).
Reardan was still not an official town, but that was about to change. The county assessor had estimated the 1902 population of Reardan at 382, which was considered "a fine showing and greatly encouraged the friends of incorporation" (Steele and Rose, 170). A new incorporation vote was held on April 4, 1903, and it passed by a vote of 68 votes in favor, 34 against (Reardan Articles of Incorporation). Reardan was now an incorporated town of the fourth class (the smallest class). In that same election, Michael F. Moriarty (1857-1911), the president of the Washington Grain & Milling Company, was voted in as Reardan's first mayor.
The people of the new town immediately took steps to improve their economic position. During the fall of 1903, Reardan residents pledged $5,000 to build a wagon road from Little Falls to the Cedar Canyon mines of Stevens County. This enabled Reardan to begin a lucrative trade with the mining district "which formerly went to Davenport and Springdale" (Steele and Rose, 170-171).
Reardan was dominated by the flour mill, which even had its own town baseball team, the Reardan Swing Sifters, which played against other towns in the region. The town also had a second baseball team, the Reardan Oriole Club, an all-woman team. It played its first game in the spring of 1903 against the men, and the Orioles "surprised the spectators with the skill displayed," losing only by a score of 6-5 ("Women in a Ball Team").
By the summer of 1903, Reardan had its own newspaper, the Reardan Gazette, which summed up the state of the town in its inaugural year:
"Reardan has five general merchandise stores, two hardware and implement stores, two lumber yards, two drug stores, one bank, two livery stables, two barber shops, two butcher shops, one jewelry store, one confectionery store, one millinery store, three blacksmith shops, three saloons, five large grain warehouses, a 400-barrel flouring mill, two doctors, one lawyer, one newspaper, one real estate office, one hotel, one restaurant, a handsome auditorium and lodge room. There are also three churches and a fine school building. Fraternal societies comprise the Odd Fellows, Rebekahs. Woodmen of the World, Women of Woodcraft, Maccabees, Fraternal Army of America and Grand Army of the Republic. There is, also, a public park adjoining the town on the east owned by citizens or Reardan, containing a ball ground and grandstand. So rapidly as possible this 'breathing space' is being beautified and in time will become one of the greatest attractions of the town" (Steele and Rose, 171).
Steele and Rose estimated the town's population at "approximately 600" in 1904 (Steele and Rose, 169). Six years later, when the United States conducted its first official census of the town, its 1910 population was 527. An influx of construction workers on the Little Falls and Long Lake dams on the Spokane River had swelled the population. "Nearly all materials" for the Little Falls dam, including the buildings, parts, and concrete, were shipped via rail to Reardan and loaded into wagons for the last 13 miles to the dam site ("Reardan History Timeline"). By 1912, some estimated the population to be as high as 900. Nobody realized at the time that this would be Reardan's high-water mark for at least a century.
Losing Momentum
In 1904, historians Steele and Rose identified one distinction that set Reardan apart from most other towns in the district. They said it "remained one of the few towns that has never received a setback by any serious conflagration" (Steele and Rose, 171). Unfortunately, this would not remain true for long.
On August 19, 1913, a fire spread from a downtown livery stable and destroyed "with one exception, every building in the block" ("Reardan Suffers…"). Gone were a "hotel, barbershop, telephone office, laundry, saloon, undertaking parlor and rooming house" (Walter, 332). A history of Reardan written by Reardan High School students in 1959 said that the fire marked "the year when things began to go downhill" for the town ("Early History of Reardan"). Reardan would soon rebuild, but the town's momentum was lost. In the 1920 census, Reardan's population dropped to 420, more than 100 lower than in the 1910 census.
Mule Days Celebrations
The town remained an important grain-shipping center and the flour mill continued to flourish. (It was later bought out by the Centennial Flouring Mills Company). Community morale remained strong, as exemplified by the success of Mule Days, the town's annual civic celebration. John W. Mann started Mule Days in 1904 as "a focal point for community activities … baseball games, carnivals, parades and mule pulls" (Walter, 344).
Mules were celebrated as an important source of power on the area's wheat farms before the advent of combines and tractors. Farmers prided themselves on being able to handle them. The big Mule Day parade sometimes included 20-mule teams. The celebration expanded to include rodeos, dances, and band concerts. "The purpose of the day was not primarily money-making but good fellowship" ("Hardy Folks Built Reardan"). The celebration's name would be switched to Reardan Community Days in 1943, but the name Mule Days was later brought back in a nod to nostalgia. Mule Days continues to be the town's big shindig well into the twenty-first century, taking place on the first Saturday in June.
For a few summers, a different kind of gathering took place on the eastern outskirts of town. Spokane Tribe members "pitched their tepees a few weeks or less at a time" and obtained fruit from local farmers, which they dried for food ("Hardy Folks Built Reardan"). Sometimes they "camped overnight" on their way to and from their reservation, which had been established across the Spokane River, directly north of Reardan ("Hardy Folks Built Reardan"). These encampments would soon become nothing but a memory.
A Destructive Fire
Rough times for Reardan continued into the 1920s. A second devastating fire swept through the business district in 1926. On the morning of August 3, 1926, Amy Shipman, Reardan telephone operator, was asleep in her mother's hotel when she was awakened by the fire. "In her night clothes, [she] rushed to the telephone office" to give the alarm ("Reardan Has $40,000 Blaze"). Yet the fire was already well under way. It destroyed the Bowie Building, a general store, a drugstore, and the hotel where Amy Shipman had been sleeping. The loss was estimated at between $40,000 and $50,000. The cause was never identified, but "it was generally believed that someone had deliberately set the blaze" ("Hardy Folks Built Reardan").
The Farmer's State Bank building was spared by the quick action of firefighters, but it was not spared from another calamity just a few months later. When employees arrived to open the bank on the morning of November 15, 1926, three masked men jumped out from behind the counter. "Put up your hands or I will drill you!" shouted a bandit flashing a revolver ("Masked Men"). The cashier was forced to open the safe. The bandits grabbed between $20,000 and $25,000 in bonds and currency and fled out the back door. The employees raised the alarm, and about 30 to 40 armed Reardan men took up the chase. Some of the loot was discovered in a nearby stubble field. Two of the bandits were tracked down and arrested the same day. The third bandit, identified only as Blackie, escaped.
For the next few decades the population of Reardan stagnated. The 1930 census showed the population at 422, up only two residents from 1920. The gas-powered farming revolution had begun to change the entire wheat industry. Far fewer farm hands were needed, and farm towns were beginning to dwindle. The Great Depression of the 1930s put a damper on farm prices and on all other forms of commerce. Reardan's 1940 census showed no change at all. It was again at exactly 422 residents.
Honorable Military Service
Many Reardan residents served in World War II, and one of them, Joe Eugene Mann (1922-1944), was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. On September 19, 1944, Private First Class Mann was with his platoon in Best, Holland, attempting to seize a bridge. Mann crept to an exposed position with a rocket launcher and destroyed an 88 mm gun and an ammunition dump. He was wounded four times. The next day, even though his arms were bandaged to his body, Mann "insisted on returning to a forward position" ("Joe Eugene Mann"). A volley of hand grenades came flying into his position and one landed next to Mann. "He yelled, 'Grenade!' and threw his body over the grenade, and as it exploded, he died" ("Joe Eugene Mann").
The Joe E. Mann Memorial, which includes his Medal of Honor, resides in the Reardan Town Hall, adjacent to the Reardan Memorial Library. The library's roots date to 1915, when a local pastor asked people to donate books. About 100 books arrived and were first housed in a local drugstore. The library then acquired its own space in a former millinery shop. In 1966, the town acquired the former medical clinic and turned it into the Town Hall and library. Volunteers "turned seven small rooms into one large room for the library" ("History").
Post World War II Reardan
The 1950 census showed a drop in population to 410 residents. In 1956, longtime Reardan residents Mary B. Driscoll and Katherine C. Tramm wrote a history of Reardan for The Spokesman-Review in which they touched on one of the main reasons that rural towns were showing a population decline. Farms could be operated more efficiently by fewer people, and "consequently, as the ranches grew larger, they became fewer in number" ("Hardy Folks Built Reardan"). Yet they also pointed out that "in the majority of cases, descendants of the pioneer ranchers still farm the land" ("Hardy Folks Built Reardan").
Driscoll and Tramm painted a picture of Reardan as of 1956. "Grain-producing, with stock-raising as a sideline," remained the community's principal occupation ("Hardy Folks Built Reardan"). "Looming high on the horizon were the six storage bins of the Reardan Grain Growers Company, Inc. and the warehouse of the Reardan Union Grain Company," they wrote ("Hardy Folks Built Reardan"). However, the town's most historic grain elevator was no longer on the skyline. A January 10, 1952, fire had destroyed the old Centennial Flouring Mills grain elevator and warehouse. "Most of the town's 420 residents braved the cold to witness the fire," reported The Spokesman-Review ("Elevator Loss …").
Driscoll and Tramm noted that a new grade school had been completed in 1953, and the high school had moved over to the former grade-school building. "Rounding out the school unit, which covers about four city blocks are the bus garage, athletic field and experimental grass plots," they wrote ("Hardy Folks Built Reardan"). They noted: "150 square miles of territory are included in the Reardan Consolidated Schools … The 10 regular bus routes reach 127 families and carry 235 students daily and cover 735 miles each day" ("Hardy Folks Built Reardan").
Community Spirit and School Sports
Reardan's population remained steady in the 1960 census but by 1970 had dipped to 389, the lowest since the town was incorporated. Yet its community spirit remained strong. One continuing source of pride was the exemplary record of Reardan High School's boys' and girls' basketball teams. The Reardan High School boys won the State 2B championships in 1966, 1967, 1970, 1971, 1974, and 1982. The girls won championships in 1985, 1988, 2011, 2012, and 2013.
In 1974, Reardan built a new community recreation area that included a lighted football field, two softball fields, five lighted tennis courts, volleyball and basketball courts, an eight-lane running track, and concrete bleachers. These were paid for partially by government funding, but the community had to come up with the rest, often with volunteer labor. "I tried to keep track of how many hours the people of this community put in on this project, but I ran out of paper," said the Reardan school superintendent ("Reardan Works to Install Recreation Facilities").
A Geographic Advantage
As the 1970s progressed, it became clear that Reardan possessed a geographic advantage over other farm towns. It was only 23 miles from a city, Spokane, and only 11 miles from one of Spokane's largest employers, Fairchild Air Force Base. In the town's early decades, residents had to take the train to Cheney and then a trolley to get to Spokane. In the 1910s and 1920s, the auto route known as the Sunset Highway, now U.S. Highway 2, was improved and ran from Spokane directly through Reardan on the town's main street, Broadway Avenue. By the 1970s, dozens of Reardan residents commuted along U.S. Highway 2 to jobs at Fairchild Air Force Base, Airway Heights, and Spokane. "We are getting to be a bedroom town, no doubt about it," said the school superintendent in 1973 ("Reardan Gaining Appeal …"). This may have contributed to an increase in the 1980 census to 498, and to later increases which saw Reardan's population jump to 608 in 2000, and to 637 in 2020.
Basketball Player and Author Sherman Alexie
One of the top Reardan High School basketball players from the 1980s would later become the most famous person ever to hail from Reardan: award-winning author Sherman Alexie (b. 1966). Alexie became an international literary star in the 1990s. Reardan occupies a crucial place in the plot of his novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which won the 2007 National Book Award for Young People's Literature. The book tells the semi-autobiographical story of a Spokane Indian boy who decides to leave his reservation school in Wellpinit, Washington, and enroll in Reardan High School. In the book, the narrator calls Reardan "the rich, white farm town that sits in the middle of the wheat fields exactly 22 miles away from the rez" (Alexie, 45).
Why did the book's character want to transfer to Reardan? "Reardan has one of the best small schools in the state, with a computer room and huge chemistry lab and a drama club and two basketball gyms" writes the novel's narrator (Alexie, 46). "The kids in Reardan are the smartest and most athletic kids anywhere. They are the best" (Alexie, 46). Alexie dedicated the book to "Wellpinit and Reardan, my hometowns" (Alexie, front matter).
Two Attractions Bring Visitors to Town
In the first decades of the twenty-first century, Reardan became known for two attractions that would bring visitors to the town. The first was the natural feature that had attracted travelers for millennia, the Reardan Audubon Lake. It had long been known as a prime bird habitat, which is why it had acquired the informal name of Audubon Lake. But it was on private land. In 2003, the land went up for sale and the Inland Northwest Land Conservancy collaborated with the area's Audubon Society chapters and the Reardan Chamber of Commerce to purchase the 227-acre parcel. In 2006, the Conservancy sold the land at cost to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Other parcels were later added. Volunteers, including members of the Reardan Lions Club, added blinds, spotting scopes, paved trails, and a restroom. "Gone were the days of risking one's life on the side of the highway to view the birds," wrote the Inland Northwest Land Conservancy ("Reardan's Audubon Lake …").
The second attraction was the Inland Northwest Rail Museum, which moved from Spokane onto a parcel two miles west of Reardan in 2016. Visitors can climb aboard the many locomotives, cabooses, and other rail cars on display. They can even take a short, rickety narrow-gauge train ride, dubbed, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, the "Reardan Rocket."
This is a fitting museum for a town that owed its existence to a rail line in 1889. The Central Washington Railway tracks still run through the middle of Reardan, although the line is now called the Washington Eastern Railroad. Travelers still stop at the ponds and wetlands, just as the tribes did for centuries, but now visitors are equipped with binoculars. And the skyline is still dominated by grain elevators and silos, which overflow with the bounty that surrounds this small, history-rich town.
