Jesse Tinsley

Pioneer businessman Stephen M. Smith came to Spokane in 1889 after growing up in Pittsford, New York, where he went to the College of Embalming in New York City to learn the funeral business. When he got to Spokane, he started a funeral business, first as Smith & Luce Undertakers and Embalmers, then just Smith and Co. His first businesses were located in the Blalock and Bavaria buildings.

Reichert’s Food Center opened at 2110 E. Sprague Ave. in 1941.

A fire tore through downtown Spokane in August 1889 and destroyed virtually everything across 32 square blocks, including the four-story Eagle Block at Riverside Avenue and Stevens Street . A tenant, railroad builder Daniel Corbin grabbed business records while his chief engineer Edward J. Roberts scooped up drawings and surveys, barely escaping before the building was engulfed.

The number of automobiles and commercial trucks in the United States almost doubled in the decade after World War II and Spokane saw its share of daily traffic jams in the postwar years. Eastbound traffic entered Spokane from the west on the Sunset Highway and flowed east onto Third Avenue. Eastbound traffic from the Spokane Valley came mostly on Sprague Avenue, which slowed in the business districts.

A photo collage shows five of Spokane’s early schools around 1901 and each building reflects new acceptance of public education in a prosperous city with optimism about its future.

The Social Security Act of 1935 changed the care of older people and allowed entrepreneurial caregivers to make a living while doing it during the Great Depression.

After World War II, Washington state expanded opportunities in job training and college degree programs.

Spokane is well-known for many examples of midcentury modern architecture and the creative minds that designed them. Midcentury is often characterized by utilitarian exposed concrete walls and beams framing curtains of windows.