Spokane Beginnings: First post office in Spokane opens on July 5, 1872.

  • By HistoryLink Staff
  • Posted 1/27/2006
  • HistoryLink.org Essay 7628
See Additional Media
On July 5, 1872, the first post office in Spokane opens. The post office of the place called Spokane (or Spokan) Falls is housed in one of the shacks clustered near the falls of the Spokane River. Spokane is part of Stevens County, out of which Spokane County will be formed in 1879.

Seth R. Scranton was first postmaster. He and James J. Downing built a sawmill along the south bank of the river. At that time, according to Duane Broyles and Howard Ness's Vintage Postcards from Old Spokane, postmasters purchased their own equipment and put the post office wherever they chose, whether in a public place or a home.

Spokane County was formed out of Stevens County on October 30, 1879. In 1891 "Falls" was dropped from Spokane's name.


Sources: Duane Broyles and Howard Ness with Tony and Suzanne Bamonte, Vintage Postcards from Old Spokane (Spokane: Tornado Creek Publications, 2005), 9-10.

Licensing: This essay is licensed under a Creative Commons license that encourages reproduction with attribution. Credit should be given to both HistoryLink.org and to the author, and sources must be included with any reproduction. Click the icon for more info. Please note that this Creative Commons license applies to text only, and not to images. For more information regarding individual photos or images, please contact the source noted in the image credit.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
Major Support for HistoryLink.org Provided By: The State of Washington | Patsy Bullitt Collins | Paul G. Allen Family Foundation | Museum Of History & Industry | 4Culture (King County Lodging Tax Revenue) | City of Seattle | City of Bellevue | City of Tacoma | King County | The Peach Foundation | Microsoft Corporation, Other Public and Private Sponsors and Visitors Like You