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

Then and Now: Title Building razed for financial center

“The young man or woman who enters business pursuits without a business college training enters the race with a tremendous handicap,” declared a Blair Business College ad in 1903.

Hugh C. Blair arrived in Spokane in 1889 to teach at Spokane Methodist College. In 1891, he and a partner organized Spokane Business College. In Spokane’s booming business world, he saw an opening to teach stenography, bookkeeping and typing. The school also offered remedial courses in English, penmanship, geography and history for those who hadn’t finished high school.

In 1897, he bought out his partner, took the name Blair Business College and moved to the Title Building at the corner of Sprague Avenue and Wall Street. For 36 years, Blair hustled for new students by running ads in high school yearbooks. “Men of influence and power are men of business,” he wrote in one.

Later, the school moved to the Madison Hotel at First Avenue and Madison Street, where a fading sign can still be seen on the rear of the building. When the depression hit, Blair took in a partner, M.M. Higley of Northwestern Business College, and the school became Blair-Higley Business University.

Blair’s health took a turn for the worse in 1933, and he merged his school with Northwestern Business College. Blair died in 1949. The Title Building, which had housed Spokane Title Co., a furniture store, phone company offices, clothing stores and meeting spaces for clubs and lodges, was acquired by Seafirst Bank and demolished in 1979 to make way for the Seafirst tower, now the Bank of America Financial Center.

– Jesse Tinsley