Schade Brewery - Spokane, WA - Photos Then and Now on Waymarking.com

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Schade Brewery - Spokane, WA

in Photos Then and Now

Posted by:  T0SHEA

11T E 469757 N 5278662

Standing on a granite foundation, this tall brick brewery took quite a few years to reach the stage of completion we see today.

The "then" photo here was taken shortly after completion of the original section of the brewery, in about 1903. Both it and the 2016 photo were taken from the parking lot in front, looking northeast.

Construction on the building was begun in 1902 and apparently wasn't completed until 1937. Trapezoidal in shape, the building consists of several separate parts joined together as they were built over the years. The southwest corner is a five story tower with a gable roof hiding behind a stepped parapet and a seven foot diameter window in the parapet. To the north of the tower is a five story section with a clerestory above and a huge semicircular window above the ground floor. Behind both the tower and this section the building steps down in height until it is just two story tall at the southeast corner.

At one time a large industrial complex with railway access, the area is now mostly the WSU campus, with the brewery building, the last remaining industrial building, housing the university bookstore, a credit union and a pharmacy. With 20,110 square feet of usable area, the building also houses a number of rentable offices. Though it had fallen into disrepair at the time of its nomination, it has been restored and appears to be fully utilized today.

State prohibition forced the closure of the original Schade Brewery in 1916. Sold in 1918, it remained mostly vacant until becoming a flophouse for transients at the beginning of the depression. Known as the "Hotel de Gink," the shelter operated with the city's blessing from 1930 to 1933. With the end of prohibition the brewery was reopened as Golden Age Brewery, which claimed to brew "the beer that made Milwaukee jealous." At that time well known architect G.A. Pehrson was employed to make necessary improvements and changes to the building.

Golden Age sold out to Bohemian in 1948, who, in turn, sold the operation to the Chicago-based Atlantic Brewing Company. In 1957 the building ceased to be a brewery and became a scrap metal storage building, slowly deteriorating for the next thirty years. Now essentially fully restored the old Schade Brewery remains a highly visible landmark in the area. Of the five large-scale breweries which operated in Spokane in the early twentieth century, the Schade Brewery Building is the sole survivor.