Then and now: Shacktown

Shacks, built by transient laborers, began popping up on the sparsely populated north rim of the Spokane River gorge in the 1890s. It wasn’t long before Spokane’s growth reached that area and landowner Col. David P. Jenkins evicted them in 1898. The homeless campers hiked down the steep bank and rebuilt their makeshift refuges along the river’s edge.

Section:Gallery

Sun., Jan. 12, 2020

A collection of shacks hug the riverbank of the Spokane River, west of the Monroe Street Bridge, in February of 1946. The shacks dated back to around 1900. During World War II, only about 20 men lived there, but in the post-war era, the settlement grew to 100 men.

The Spokesman-Review Photo Archive Sr
The rocky north bank of the Spokane River, west of the Monroe Street Bridge, seen here in January 2020, once held a squatters village called “Shacktown” until it was torn down in 1951. The extensive cement retaining wall supported the steep hillside below the Milwaukee Road tracks that ran along the top of the gorge. The area above the gorge is now Kendall Yards, an upscale housing and retail development.

Jesse Tinsley The Spokesman-Review