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 West Downtown Historic Transportation Corridor - Spokane, WA Posted by:  T0SHEA
N 47° 39.323 W 117° 25.468
11T E 468126 N 5278085
Spokane's West Downtown Historic Transportation Corridor encompasses the warehousing, supply, railroad dependant and single room occupancy hotel area of the city, south and west of the city's main business section.
Waymark Code: WMTCXZ
Location: Washington, United States
Date Posted: 11/03/2016
Views: 2
Lying along either side of a seven-block stretch of the Northern Pacific Railroad, this historic district is bounded on the north by Sprague and West 1st Avenues, on the west by Cedar Street, on the south by West 2nd Avenue, and on the east by Lincoln and Post Streets. The district encompasses 1 contributing structure and 50 contributing buildings, 6 of which have been individually placed on the National Register. Though few buildings in the district were destroyed in the disastrous fire of 1889, essentially none of the present building are older than that date as older ones have been replaced by more fireproof ones of brick and stone.
Coordinates given are at the Central Steam Heat Plant, 815 West Railroad Avenue/152 Post Street, the first listed contributing building in the district.
The buildings in the corridor fell into three broad categories that relate to the development of a transportation/commercial neighborhood: railroad-dependent buildings; single room occupancy hotels and other lodgings; and automobile showrooms and automobile service and supply shops. Their materials range from brick, to heavy reinforced masonry, to reinforced concrete and concrete block with timber, steel, or concrete framing.
Characteristic types of buildings in the district include: large brick warehouses, threer to four-story commercial style blocks, elegant automobile showrooms, and one-story auto-related businesses. Today, the West Downtown Historic Transportation Corridor represents Spokane's best intact collection of railroad dependent buildings,
automobile-related commercial buildings, and multi-story lodging blocks. This concentration of representative building types associated with transportation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is one of the factors that makes the corridor eligible for National Register listing under Criterion C. The other is that despite its utilitarian character, the district contains many buildings designed by notable Spokane architects including: L. L.
Rand, G. A. Pehrson, Albert Held, and Arthur Cowley.
Transportation improvements were critical to Spokane's development as a regional distribution center. The arrival of the Northern Pacific Railroad in 1881 stimulated growth and urbanization. Warehouses, lumberyards, and fuel depots clustered around rail lines and single room occupancy hotels housed transient workers. By the turn of the
century, Spokane had become a major railroad town with nine railroads, five of which were transcontinental, coming through the city.
The 1889 fire that raged through the central part of Spokane destroyed few buildings in the West Downtown Historic Transportation Corridor, but buildings constructed in the district after the fire reflected new standards and styles. Ordinances requiring fire resistant buildings set construction standards and subsequently newly erected buildings were constructed of brick or masonry.
From the NRHP Nomination Form
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Parsons Building |
Montvale Hotel |
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Madison Hotel |
Jefferson & Windsor Hotels |
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IOOF Building |
Commercial Building
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Street address:
Sprague, Pacific, 1st and 2nd Avenues
Spokane, WA United States
99201
County / Borough / Parish: Spokane
Year listed: 1999
Historic (Areas of) Significance: Event, Architecture/Engineering
Periods of significance: 1925-1949, 1900-1924, 1875-1899
Historic function: Agriculture/Subsistence, Commerce/Trade, Domestic, Education, Industry/Processing/Extraction, Social, Transportation
Current function: Commerce/Trade, Domestic, Government, Health Care, Industry/Processing/Extraction, Social, Transportation
Privately owned?: yes
Primary Web Site: [Web Link]
Secondary Website 1: [Web Link]
Season start / Season finish: Not listed
Hours of operation: Not listed
Secondary Website 2: Not listed
National Historic Landmark Link: Not listed
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Visit Instructions:
Please give the date and brief account of your visit. Include any additional observations or information that you may have, particularly about the current condition of the site. Additional photos are highly encouraged, but not mandatory.
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