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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

El Rodeo moves into Cheney’s historic district


The El Rodeo Mexican restaurant is housed in a building built in 1907 as a train station in Cheney. 
 (Brian Plonka / The Spokesman-Review)
Jessica Lemke Correspondent

CHENEY–A new Mexican restaurant is the latest use of a 100-year-old building in Cheney’s downtown historic district whose previous tenants have included a train depot, nursing home and secondhand store.

Before opening Oct. 18, owners of the El Rodeo Mexican Restaurant knocked out some interior walls, floorboards, and remodeled an outside deck to bring their venue up to date. Manager Jorge Anaya knew the building was historic when he began work there, but he hasn’t spent much time reflecting on its history. The steady stream of customers hounding after El Rodeo’s popular $6.95 enchiladas and other reasonably priced Mexican food keeps his mind elsewhere.

At 505 Second St., the building previously housed Fiesta Charra, another Mexican restaurant. Anaya and customers say the food and ambience today is an improvement over the previous venue.

“It (the food) tastes really good. It’s enjoyable,” said customer Eric Eilert, who ordered an enchilada and beer fior lunch. The menu packs a sizable list of alcholic drinks and beer from the remodeled bar in back. Five dollars gets you an icy lime margarita, their most popular cocktail.

Eighty-four-year old Cheney resident Margret Fischer remembers using the building in the 1920s. It was a bus depot, then, anchoring a roundtrip route into Spokane with a fare of less than 25 cents for a one-way trip.

“Until after World War II, that was the only means of commuting unless you had access to a car and not many of us did,” Fischer said from her home a block from the El Rodeo.

The building opened in 1907 as the Cheney Interurban Depot, which ran electrically-powered trains on a circuit through small local cities. The track included stops in Cheney, Medical Lake, Moscow, and went as far east as Hayden Lake, said Susan Beeman, secretary of the Cheney Historic Preservation Commission. The line ferried passengers and freight until 1922, when it was transformed to a bus depot. Passengers boarded buses there until the depot’s closing in 1939, according to a Cheney historic inventory report. It opened again as a nursing home through the 1960s and 1970s, followed by a secondhand store and finally a host of restaurants for the past 40 years.

The building was listed on the state and national historic registers in 1979. The bricks of its façade were formed from clay mined around Cheney in the early 1900s, a soft adobe used throughout several historic buildings downtown. Much of the lumber used to construct the building was cut and milled from local forests.

Anaya said he isn’t thinking about history as he waits tables and cheerfully greets the next customer. Today it’s the restaurant’s unique sauces and secret recipes that propel the business into the next day of earnings.