Then and Now: Teddy Roosevelt visits Spokane

Theodore Roosevelt was the first sitting U.S. president to visit Spokane. In 1903, the chief executive was taking a monthlong tour of Western states. Spokane was near the end of the tour and the president was exhausted, so he gave only one speech here. The 6,000 schoolchildren assembled in Coeur d’Alene Park for a second speech were disappointed.

With a drizzling rain, Roosevelt stepped off the train at the Northern Pacific depot on May 26, and The Spokesman-Review estimated 30,000 people were there to greet him, most of them knowing they would not get within earshot of the main grandstand. Electric amplification was not yet available.

U.S. Senator George Turner, a friend of the president, introduced him. “Roosevelt has a voice that penetrates like a clarion,” reported The Spokesman-Review. The reporter marveled at the quiet of such a throng as everyone strained to hear. The president praised the Civil War veterans massed around the stage, causing the crowd to erupt in tumultuous applause. He also declared “no citizen is above the law,” and that the wealthy must obey the law as well as the poor. More applause.

“Perhaps the most striking feature of President Roosevelt’s appearance,” wrote the S-R reporter, “is his peculiar showing of his teeth when he speaks. Oftentimes it gives him the appearance of smiling when in the midst of a more earnest period. One glance at his eyes, however, shows the intense earnestness of his manner.”

As the president mounted his train to leave the city, he graciously accepted souvenirs from local citizens. The Rev. J.B. Beckham presented him with a gold horseshoe with the figure “5,” presented “on behalf of the colored citizens of Spokane.” The “president’s face lighted up with an expansive smile,” wrote a reporter, because the number was a reference to Roosevelt’s cavalry unit in the Spanish-American War.

J.C. Callahan, of Rathdrum, who had known Roosevelt in his cowboy days, struggled in vain to reach the president before the president ducked inside the train. Callahan shouted “Miles City, 1884!” The president turned back to the platform and grasped Callahan’s hand, saying “Hurrah for Miles City!”

The president made quick stops in Coeur d’Alene and Wallace that same day before continuing the long journey to Washington, D.C.

Roosevelt visited Spokane again in 1911, after he had left office.

The newspaper wrote, “It was a pageant such as the Inland Empire has never seen before, and which it will not see soon again.”

– Jesse Tinsley