Then and Now photos: Review Tower

The Rev. Thomas G. Watson, a Presbyterian missionary from Waukesha, Wis., stepped off a train in Spokan Falls, as Spokane was then known, in 1883 to start a new church in the dusty frontier town of 1,500. After a few years meeting in various downtown buildings, a new First Presbyterian Church was dedicated in December 1886 at the corner of Riverside Avenue and Monroe Street. The cost: $3,200. Amid a real estate boom, the church was sold in 1889 for $21,000, and the Review Tower was finished in 1891 to house the Review newspaper. A few years later, William Cowles, publisher of the Spokesman newspaper, bought the Review and the tower. The church built a temporary hall at Second and Jefferson in 1890, then built the stately stone church at Fourth and Cedar in 1910, where it still serves the congregation. – Jesse Tinsley