You exit The Spokesman-Review downtown office on Riverside, head west to cross Monroe (at your own peril), step inside the S-R production facility and head to the elevator to venture below street level. When the elevator door opens, you enter a world of concrete posts the size of Redwood trunks, chain-link fiefdoms, enough wooden pallets to build a luxury shanty and monster newspaper rolls waiting to spread the news.
Off in the far corner is a historical treasure protected by 7-foot-high chain-link fencing and a $3 padlock. That 50-by-30-foot space with rolling shelves holds the pages of The Spokesman-Review and Spokane Daily Chronicle for the past 135 years. If you like history, it’s Disneyland. But bring your dust mask.
When we decided to celebrate our 135th birthday, we wanted to end the year with a special collection to highlight some of the biggest news during that period. At first blush, it seemed like a real doable task. The reality is, the more you discover the harder it is to make decisions.
As you look through these pages, there is no doubt you will quibble with what is displayed her and what isn’t. And that’s absolutely understandable. This collection should not be considered the definitive list of big news events of the last 135 years. This effort is merely an example of 135 years of headlines, stories, photos and graphics.
So how did we decide?
We had a meeting, or four. That was probably our biggest mistake. That is when you learn that there are as many opinions about our history as there are events. One wise guy even suggested that we run the headline of every U.S. presidential outcome. Great idea! What, wait. Every one since 1883?
Here is the painstaking process:
You first locate the date of the big event. You then head to the archive dungeon. The bound books of newspaper issues are separated by days. In the early 1900s you may have a book that covers two months. In more recent history, a book will cover 10-15 days. Once you find the book with the correct newspaper, you must carefully and precisely use your X-acto knife to extract the single page. Once removed, the page is carefully scanned to create an electronic version. The scanning is done with two passes and Photoshop is used to seamlessly patch two halves together.
The bulk of the scanning was expertly and patiently handled by photo intern Libby Kamrowski. Once scanned, the page is put back in the correct spot in the book, which is wrapped back up and placed back on the shelf with the correct identifying words and marks.
The more you explore this fascinating “first draft of history” the more you want to share. Because we wanted to share as many pages as possible, explanations are mostly contained here. The headlines speak for themselves, but this can act as quickie guide.
We definitely wanted to include the first edition, May 19, 1983. In those days photos were rare. We also included an 1889 page that doesn’t exactly scream the news that Washington is officially a state. Unlike today’s design, subtlety was much more common. The first paragraph of the story is magnificent:
“After thirty-six long years Washington to-day cast off the bonds of territorial servitude and took its place among the sisterhood of states.”
We include the page that displayed what may have been the biggest news day in our state history and it needed just two words “Volcano explodes!” Another page is of the 1889 fire that burned down the city. The one-column headline declared “Millions Lost.” Smaller headlines beneath the main headline gave readers a quick glance that declared outrage, sadness, blame and resiliency.
There were more fires, of course, and many more devastating than the one in 1889. The greatest of them all was in 1910 and detailed 100 years later in a Spokesman-Review story by staff writer Jim Kershner. In 1991, fires broke out in several areas around Spokane. Dubbed Firestorm, the October blazes burned down homes and displaced residents for days. There was also Ice Storm, Wind Storm and the 2008 snowstorm that set the record for inches in a 24-hour period.
Folks who remember the 1969 snowstorm may argue that it was the worst snowstorm our region has ever endured.
Our collection includes great moments in Spokane history, like the opening of Expo ’74(page 8), President Jimmy Carter’s rededication of Riverfront Park (page 9), Grand Coulee Dam starting up in 1941 (page 6), and the first Bloomsday race (page 20). The growth of that race was nothing short of phenomenal, but even in 1977 when there were just 1,400 runners, the humble beginning was celebrated on the front page of The Spokesman-Review.
Our collection also includes many tragic events like the recent shooting at Freeman High School and the four-day nightmare at Fairchild Air Force base that started with a former airman opening fire at the base hospital. Five died and 22 were injured. Four days later, a Fairchild B-52 crashed while practicing for an air show, killing all four aboard.
Some of the bigger crime stories in our region were highlighted as well as bizarre events like the Division Street bridge collapsing in 1915. There were assassinations and notable deaths. We leaned toward local events and in the case of the Columbia Shuttle tragedy in 2003, there was a local tie to one of the biggest news stories in our history. Cheney High School grad Michael Andersons was one of seven astronauts who perished in the explosion.
With wars, the headlines were usually big and bold. When the first atom bomb dropped, the headline went across the top of the page. A couple of days later, when Nagasaki was hit, it didn’t elevate to the top of the page.
In sports, we kept it completely local and had a lot to choose from. There were personal achievements and team victories and losses. Although WSU’s 1997 Rose Bowl season and Gonzaga’s amazing run through the NCAA Tournament in 2017 ended with losses, the outcomes hardly diminished great seasons.
And, of course, we have every presidential election since 1892 (1884 and 1888 were missing). The knucklehead who suggested the addition, government editor Jonathan Brunt, is a political junkie. Few things get him more excited than a tight election race. Most of the headlines in this collection indicated whether the 32 races were tight or not. We highlighted a few, like the 2000 race that ended up in the Supreme Court, the 2008 race that elected Barack Obama as the first African-American president and the 2016 race that put first-time politician Donald Trump into office. The race was close enough going into Election Day that we created three versions as possible covers – The Trump version, the Hillary Clinton victory, and the undecided version.
We also highlighted a few local elections – Jim Chase as the city’s first African-American mayor and George Nethercutt’s upset win over House Speaker Tom Foley in 1994 – and one recall, Mayor Jim West in 2005. If you look closely at the 1964 presidential election (page 31), below the story on Lyndon Johnson’s victory is a smaller headline of upstart congressman Foley upsetting incumbent Walt Horan. The 1976 election that put Jimmy Carter in the White House also gave Washington its first woman governor, Dixie Lee Ray.
When you explore as many pages as we did in preparing this section, you can’t help but wonder what it would have been like when a mysterious explosion destroyed several businesses on North Monroe Street in 1962. How would we treat that today? In 1912, the Titanic sank. That was worth a four-column headline. And the stock market crash of 1929? Two columns.
When Elvis played at Joe Albi Stadium in 1971, it landed on page 6. When Garth Brooks played seven shows last year at the Arena, it made our cover three times that week. When Jonas Salk announced the cure for polio, the S-R editors put it on the cover, but it was low on the page with an understated headline.
How will future generations look back at our more recent efforts? For starters, they won’t need to visit the no-frills archive outpost below Monroe Street. Since 2004, our pages have been saved digitally. Somewhere on a server at an undisclosed location or up in a cloud, our pages can be retrieved with a few mouse clicks.
The growing cacaphony of digitally minded “prophets” dismiss the importance of the daily newspaper in today’s world and predict its demise. We think the daily newspaper is needed more than ever. In the past two-plus years, under the leadership of Editor Rob Curley, we have doubled our efforts to make a more lively and complete product for our readers. In particular, our “Year in the Fields” series produced a lot of covers worthy of this section, but picking just one or two would undervalue an amazing body of work.
Thanks to the value the Cowles family places on keeping our citizens informed, and to the dedication of those who work daily to present a quality product, The Spokesman-Review will have many more birthdays to celebrate.
You exit The Spokesman-Review downtown office on Riverside, head west to cross Monroe (at your own peril), step inside the S-R production facility and head to the elevator to venture below street level. When the elevator door opens, you enter a world of concrete posts the size of Redwood trunks, chain-link fiefdoms, enough wooden pallets to build a luxury shanty and monster newspaper rolls waiting to spread the news.
Off in the far corner is a historical treasure protected by 7-foot-high chain-link fencing and a $3 padlock. That 50-by-30-foot space with rolling shelves holds the pages of The Spokesman-Review and Spokane Daily Chronicle for the past 135 years. If you like history, it’s Disneyland. But bring your dust mask.
When we decided to celebrate our 135th birthday, we wanted to end the year with a special collection to highlight some of the biggest news during that period. At first blush, it seemed like a real doable task. The reality is, the more you discover the harder it is to make decisions.
As you look through these pages, there is no doubt you will quibble with what is displayed her and what isn’t. And that’s absolutely understandable. This collection should not be considered the definitive list of big news events of the last 135 years. This effort is merely an example of 135 years of headlines, stories, photos and graphics.
So how did we decide?
We had a meeting, or four. That was probably our biggest mistake. That is when you learn that there are as many opinions about our history as there are events. One wise guy even suggested that we run the headline of every U.S. presidential outcome. Great idea! What, wait. Every one since 1883?
Here is the painstaking process:
You first locate the date of the big event. You then head to the archive dungeon. The bound books of newspaper issues are separated by days. In the early 1900s you may have a book that covers two months. In more recent history, a book will cover 10-15 days. Once you find the book with the correct newspaper, you must carefully and precisely use your X-acto knife to extract the single page. Once removed, the page is carefully scanned to create an electronic version. The scanning is done with two passes and Photoshop is used to seamlessly patch two halves together.
The bulk of the scanning was expertly and patiently handled by photo intern Libby Kamrowski. Once scanned, the page is put back in the correct spot in the book, which is wrapped back up and placed back on the shelf with the correct identifying words and marks.
The more you explore this fascinating “first draft of history” the more you want to share. Because we wanted to share as many pages as possible, explanations are mostly contained here. The headlines speak for themselves, but this can act as quickie guide.
We definitely wanted to include the first edition, May 19, 1983. In those days photos were rare. We also included an 1889 page that doesn’t exactly scream the news that Washington is officially a state. Unlike today’s design, subtlety was much more common. The first paragraph of the story is magnificent:
“After thirty-six long years Washington to-day cast off the bonds of territorial servitude and took its place among the sisterhood of states.”
We include the page that displayed what may have been the biggest news day in our state history and it needed just two words “Volcano explodes!” Another page is of the 1889 fire that burned down the city. The one-column headline declared “Millions Lost.” Smaller headlines beneath the main headline gave readers a quick glance that declared outrage, sadness, blame and resiliency.
There were more fires, of course, and many more devastating than the one in 1889. The greatest of them all was in 1910 and detailed 100 years later in a Spokesman-Review story by staff writer Jim Kershner. In 1991, fires broke out in several areas around Spokane. Dubbed Firestorm, the October blazes burned down homes and displaced residents for days. There was also Ice Storm, Wind Storm and the 2008 snowstorm that set the record for inches in a 24-hour period.
Folks who remember the 1969 snowstorm may argue that it was the worst snowstorm our region has ever endured.
Our collection includes great moments in Spokane history, like the opening of Expo ’74(page 8), President Jimmy Carter’s rededication of Riverfront Park (page 9), Grand Coulee Dam starting up in 1941 (page 6), and the first Bloomsday race (page 20). The growth of that race was nothing short of phenomenal, but even in 1977 when there were just 1,400 runners, the humble beginning was celebrated on the front page of The Spokesman-Review.
Our collection also includes many tragic events like the recent shooting at Freeman High School and the four-day nightmare at Fairchild Air Force base that started with a former airman opening fire at the base hospital. Five died and 22 were injured. Four days later, a Fairchild B-52 crashed while practicing for an air show, killing all four aboard.
Some of the bigger crime stories in our region were highlighted as well as bizarre events like the Division Street bridge collapsing in 1915. There were assassinations and notable deaths. We leaned toward local events and in the case of the Columbia Shuttle tragedy in 2003, there was a local tie to one of the biggest news stories in our history. Cheney High School grad Michael Andersons was one of seven astronauts who perished in the explosion.
With wars, the headlines were usually big and bold. When the first atom bomb dropped, the headline went across the top of the page. A couple of days later, when Nagasaki was hit, it didn’t elevate to the top of the page.
In sports, we kept it completely local and had a lot to choose from. There were personal achievements and team victories and losses. Although WSU’s 1997 Rose Bowl season and Gonzaga’s amazing run through the NCAA Tournament in 2017 ended with losses, the outcomes hardly diminished great seasons.
And, of course, we have every presidential election since 1892 (1884 and 1888 were missing). The knucklehead who suggested the addition, government editor Jonathan Brunt, is a political junkie. Few things get him more excited than a tight election race. Most of the headlines in this collection indicated whether the 32 races were tight or not. We highlighted a few, like the 2000 race that ended up in the Supreme Court, the 2008 race that elected Barack Obama as the first African-American president and the 2016 race that put first-time politician Donald Trump into office. The race was close enough going into Election Day that we created three versions as possible covers – The Trump version, the Hillary Clinton victory, and the undecided version.
We also highlighted a few local elections – Jim Chase as the city’s first African-American mayor and George Nethercutt’s upset win over House Speaker Tom Foley in 1994 – and one recall, Mayor Jim West in 2005. If you look closely at the 1964 presidential election (page 31), below the story on Lyndon Johnson’s victory is a smaller headline of upstart congressman Foley upsetting incumbent Walt Horan. The 1976 election that put Jimmy Carter in the White House also gave Washington its first woman governor, Dixie Lee Ray.
When you explore as many pages as we did in preparing this section, you can’t help but wonder what it would have been like when a mysterious explosion destroyed several businesses on North Monroe Street in 1962. How would we treat that today? In 1912, the Titanic sank. That was worth a four-column headline. And the stock market crash of 1929? Two columns.
When Elvis played at Joe Albi Stadium in 1971, it landed on page 6. When Garth Brooks played seven shows last year at the Arena, it made our cover three times that week. When Jonas Salk announced the cure for polio, the S-R editors put it on the cover, but it was low on the page with an understated headline.
How will future generations look back at our more recent efforts? For starters, they won’t need to visit the no-frills archive outpost below Monroe Street. Since 2004, our pages have been saved digitally. Somewhere on a server at an undisclosed location or up in a cloud, our pages can be retrieved with a few mouse clicks.
The growing cacaphony of digitally minded “prophets” dismiss the importance of the daily newspaper in today’s world and predict its demise. We think the daily newspaper is needed more than ever. In the past two-plus years, under the leadership of Editor Rob Curley, we have doubled our efforts to make a more lively and complete product for our readers. In particular, our “Year in the Fields” series produced a lot of covers worthy of this section, but picking just one or two would undervalue an amazing body of work.
Thanks to the value the Cowles family places on keeping our citizens informed, and to the dedication of those who work daily to present a quality product, The Spokesman-Review will have many more birthdays to celebrate.
