Keyword(s): Laura Arksey
The town of Cashmere in Chelan County is among the most picturesque in Washington. It lies on the southern bank of the Wenatchee River about midway between its turbulent upper reaches at Leavenworth a...
Few Washington towns can claim a more idyllic setting than Chewelah, located some 45 miles north of Spokane in the southern Colville River valley in Stevens County. To the east, the dark bulk of Quart...
With a 2010 population of 7,265, Clarkston is the urban center, though not the county seat, of tiny Asotin County in the southeast corner of Washington. At the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater r...
Colville, county seat of Stevens County some 65 miles north of Spokane and 45 miles south of the Canadian border, was incorporated in 1890 but founded much earlier. It traces its origin to Pinkney Cit...
Mining and railroad magnate, Daniel Chase Corbin ranks as a major shaper of the growth and prosperity of Spokane, the economic and geographic center of the Inland Northwest. He settled in Spokane in ...
Kirtland Kelsey Cutter was primarily a Spokane architect with a significant practice in Spokane, Seattle, and Southern California, as well as commissions as far away as England. Of Spokane’s man...
Davenport Hotel of Spokane opened its doors on September 1, 1914, and was soon acclaimed one of the world's grand hotels. Spokane already had fine hotels, but civic and business leaders, intent on inc...
Emma Smith DeVoe was a major figure in the American woman suffrage movement and a Republican Party activist. Although she spent the bulk of her political life in Washington state, she was also a paid...
Felts Field, Spokane's historic airfield, is located on the south bank of the Spokane River east of Spokane proper. Aviation activities began there in 1913. In 1920 the field, then called the Parkwat...
Ferry County, carved out of Stevens County in 1899, is bounded by British Columbia on the north, Stevens County on the east, Lincoln County on the south, and Okanogan County on the west. Its county se...
Few entrepreneurs have been more important to the development of Spokane and the Inland Northwest or involved in a broader range of endeavors than Jay P. Graves. Arriving in Spokane from Illinois in ...
Most of downtown Spokane (then known as Spokane Falls) was destroyed by fire on August 4, 1889. The conflagration broke out in an area of flimsy wooden structures and quickly spread to engulf the subs...
Spokane lawyer Reba (Rebecca Jane) Hurn was the first woman elected to the Washington State Senate, serving from 1923 to 1930. Before launching her legal and political careers, she pursued graduate w...
May Arkwright Hutton is probably the best-known woman's name in Spokane history. The woman suffrage leader and political activist grew up in Ohio and came west to the Coeur d'Alene mining area as a yo...
On June 20, 1859, Captain (Brevet Major) Pinkney Lugenbeel (also spelled Lougenbeel) (1819-1886) arrives in the Colville Valley and selects a site near the present town of Colville, Spokane County (la...
On December 7, 1859, a post office is established at Pinkney City (or Pinkneyville), a raw frontier town that has sprung up across Mill Creek from military Fort Colville in what was then Spokane Count...
In May 1876, Benjamin Coplen (1843-1912), a homesteader on Hangman (present Latah) Creek south of Spokane, discovers huge, mysterious bones in a bog near his spring. These fossils and others unearthed...
On November 29, 1881, the Eastern Washington city of Spokane Falls, the forerunner of Spokane, is incorporated as a first-class city. From a tiny settlement established in 1871 along the falls of the ...
On Sunday, August 4, 1889, fire destroys most of downtown Spokane Falls. It begins in an area of flimsy wooden structures and quickly engulfs the substantial stone and brick buildings of the business ...
On October 17, 1889, the first Monroe Street Bridge in Spokane is completed. The first bridge on the site is a rickety wooden affair built by the Spokane Cable Railway Company in partnership with the ...
On Saturday, October 18, 1889, the Spokane Falls & Northern Railway, built by Daniel Chase Corbin (1832-1918) under contract with the Northern Pacific, reaches Colville. Prior to that time, transporta...
On June 7, 1890, Colville, the county seat of Stevens County, is incorporated as a fourth-class town under the laws of the state of Washington. This is the second attempt at incorporation. The first, ...
On June 27, 1892, Spokane's second Monroe Street Bridge, a steel bridge, is completed. It replaces a rickety wooden bridge that burned down in 1890. The steel Monroe Street Bridge will be replaced in...
On January 18, 1897, the Spokane Stock Exchange opens. It is one of about 200 regional exchanges and initially trades in mining shares issued as penny stocks (shares selling below a dollar). Spokane, ...
On May 28, 1897, the Methow Trading Company of Winthrop, Okanogan County, is formally incorporated under the laws of the State of Washington. Capitalized by Eastern investors, it is an expansion of a ...
On January 2, 1900, Whitworth College opens in Tacoma, with three faculty and 15 students, following a move from its original location in Sumner, Washington. It occupies the sumptuous estate of Tacom...
On October 1, 1903, in Colville, the Stevens County Pioneer Association, later renamed the Stevens County Historical Society, holds its first meeting. Prosecuting attorney John B. Slater (b. 1860) is ...
On June 1, 1907, the newly instituted Spokane Board of Park Commissioners begins its duties with Aubrey Lee White (1869-1948) as president, a position he will hold for the next 15 years. White is the ...