Exterior of residence retains look
of former powerhouse
Electricity was generated at the Nine Mile Falls dam and transmitted to the Frequency Changing Station. Within, a portion of it was converted from Alternating Current (AC) to Direct Current (DC) and fed out to the Spokane streetcar system. The majority of the electricity was sent out as AC to more substations along the Spokane and Inland Empire Railroad, where most was converted to DC to power the electric railway. The remaining power was sent out as AC to power communities which the lines passed.
The station itself was built by the railroad in 1908 and used until 1939. It stood, apparently derelict, until 1978, at which time it was
converted into Apartments. On the exterior of the building one may still see a couple of the original pass-through insulators which carried electricity in or out of the station.
An April 5, 2012 article in the Spokesman-Review detailed the renovation, part of which may be read below.
When it comes to home renovations, Sherry Knott picked perhaps the most challenging one possible. Having once lived in a row house in Philadelphia that she loved, she always wanted to do a loft renovation for herself – and in 1978 when she came across the old derelict Frequency Changing Station on the bluff just above Liberty Park, she found her opportunity.
“It was a clear-span building with no interior walls and with 11,000 square feet on the main floor. It was being used as a storage facility for a boat dealer,” she said. “And it was perfect for what I wanted to do.”
And do with it she did. As a result, the building and its adjacent storage battery wing have been transformed into eclectic living spaces and a garage – a far cry from their original design in 1908 when they housed the electrical equipment that powered an interurban railway system centered in Spokane. The larger 102-by-76-foot brick building (the formal changing station), more than 50 feet high and capped by a medium gable roof, once housed four motor generator sets, four 1,250-kilowatt transformers, three 375-kW transformers and three 75-kW transformers. They distributed power generated by the Inland Power Plant at Nine Mile to a rail system that connected people and products throughout the region – Coeur d’Alene and Moscow in Idaho and Colfax to Spokane in Washington – as well as the streetcar system within Spokane itself.
The 20-foot tall, 92-by-42-foot east wing contained a 550-volt chloride storage battery and other pieces of equipment that were charged when demands on the system were low, reducing the amount of power drawn from the Nine Mile generators during high-peak times, thus saving power costs by an estimated 50 percent.
All equipment was removed from the structures in about 1939, when the property was first sold by the rail interests. The buildings remained structurally sound but were subject to vandalism. “We had to put in $40,000 in windows alone,” Knott said, “as people had thrown rocks through just about every window, including all 12 of the 5-by-12-foot windows.”
From the Spokane Spokesman