Built in 1920, the United Hillyard Bank Building is a rare example of the Beaux Arts style. It replaced two earlier banks on the site, demolished to make room for the new bank. Unlike almost all of the other two storey commercial buildings in Hillyard, the United Hillyard Bank Building had business and professional offices on the upper floor instead of hotel rooms. They were occupied primarily by a series of physicians.
Today the building is the home of United Hillyard Antique Mall, displaying and selling home furnishings, glassware, jewelry, books, art, toys, antique tableware and kitchen items, pottery and more. They have been in the building since 1988.
When James Jerome Hill, generally known as J.J., brought his Great Northern Railway to Spokane, the decision was made to set up the railway shops, service center and roundhouse adjacent to what became the town of Hillyard, named, naturally enough, after J.J. himself, literally, Hill's Yard.
In the early twentieth century the prosperity brought about by the presence of the Great Northern yards gave rise to much new construction, primarily of much more substantial brick and stone buildings, forming the Hillyard business section we see today. Prosperity continued until the closing of the yards in the early 1980s, a culmination of the mergers of the Great Northern into the Burlington Northern Railroad and eventually the BNSF Railway, resulting on the relocation of the railroad yards to Yardley. The loss of their only industry to speak of created instant economic woes for Hillyard, which continue to this day, with its continuing to be the poorest neighborhood in the state of Washington.
UNITED HILLYARD BANK BUILDING
Address - N. 5016 Market Street
Built date - 1920
Style - Beaux Arts Classicism
Architect/Builder - Henry Bertelsen, architect
Classification - Historic Contributing
This two-story brick masonry building features buff-colored brick veneer on the facade, a decorative brick sawtooth and terra cotta cornice capped with eight evenly spaced cartouches and the initials "UHB" (United Hillyard Bank), and a galvanized metal marquee with" decorative cresting that is suspended over the front entrance. Seven windows with curved brick arches capped with terra cotta keystones punctuate the facade. The original storefront is intact. A poured concrete addition is attached to the back of the building.
In 1908, the First National Bank built a tall, two-story building that served as one of the banks in Hillyard (another bank was next door north and was called the State Bank of Hillyard). Both bank buildings were demolished and replaced in 1920 by the current United Hillyard Bank Building which was designed by Spokane architect, Henry Bertelsen. The building housed the United Hillyard Bank on the first floor. Various physicians leased offices on the second floor.
From the NRHP Nomination Form
