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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

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Then and Now this week: Spokane’s first waterworks

This photo,circa 1888, shows the new city waterworks, center, perched on the southwest corner of Canada Island, then called Crystal Island.
This photo,circa 1888, shows the new city waterworks, center, perched on the southwest corner of Canada Island, then called Crystal Island.

Attentive readers of the Then and Now column will notice that this week's photo is a recropping of one that ran several years ago in this space.This photo, circa 1888, shows the city's first waterworks, perched on the southwest corner of Canada Island, which was then called Crystal Island, possibly named after the Crystal Laundry which sat nearby. It was built by Rolla A. Jones, the city's first water superintendent. It had state-of-the-art pumps connected to modern hydrants. But it wasn't a match for the 1889 fire, at least it wasn't used to its full capacity. Read about it here. Attentive readers may also have noticed that when I ran the photo the first time, I confused the waterworks with the Echo Rolling Mill, a four-story structure that sat across the middle channel of the river on Havermale Island. This is possible because there were water pumps, both for industrial water and fire suppression, at the Echo Mill, and some historical sources conflated the two locations. 

 



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