Binkley House - Spokane, WA - U.S. National Register of Historic Places on Waymarking.com

J.W. Binkley House
The J.W. Binkley House is historically significant for its association with a prominent lawyer and financier who help shaped the early development of Spokane. As the American agent for the influential Northwestern and Pacific Hypotheekbank, Binkley played an instrumental role in capitalizing the expansion of Spokane Falls, rebuilding the city after the great fire of 1889, and foreclosing on businesses in the wake of the Depression of 1893- At the turn of the century, Binkley and his associate Jacob Taylor founded the North Pacific Loan and Trust Company, and lent millions of dollars for farmland and commercial property throughout the Inland Empire. The house that Binkley built in the late 19th century remains well preserved and is the property most closely associated with his long career.

In their capacity as agents for the Dutch, Binkley and Taylor played an instrumental role in the development of the Spokane area. The Dutch investors believed the area was under-capitalized and, with Binkley and Taylor acting as agents, they lent millions of dollars to industrialists, real estate speculators, and businessmen in pioneer Spokane. In 1889, when the commercial center burned in a devastating fire, the bank helped finance the reconstruction. Indeed, much of the post-fire building boom was financed by Hypotheekbank, the "heaviest lender" in the city at the time, according to one analysis. The bank also made extensive loans to farmers in Spokane, Lincoln, Whitman, Garfield, Columbia, and Walla Walla counties as well as in Idaho. When the boom finally went bust in the Depression of 1893» many prominent people in Spokane were in debt to the bank and in 1894 and 1895, Binkley and Taylor (acting in lieu of the absentee owners) oversaw the aggressive foreclosure and resale of some of the region's most valuable commercial, residential, and agricultural real estate. In May, 1895, the Dutch company appointed a new Spokane-based director, Scotsman Thomas Thomson, who "continued Binkley and Taylor's vigorous tactics."
From the NRHP Nomination Form