Jesse Tinsley

Metropolitan Opera soprano Patrice Munsel and the Spokane Philharmonic opened the new Spokane Coliseum in December 1954.

The rustic Bear Creek Lodge along North Mt. Spokane Park Drive, just outside the state park, was built in 1952 but closed in 2023 and sold to the park for a new headquarters building.

Retail commerce and Santa Claus have been a part of Spokane holidays since the turn of the 20th century. The character of Santa entered American culture through the many drawings of illustrator Thomas Nast, dating back to the Civil War. The story best known as “The Night Before Christmas” filled out the lore of the beloved Christmas icon.

Riverfront Park’s Ice Palace, which opened the day after Thanksgiving in 1977, had a 40-year run as a downtown winter attraction. Opening day included demonstrations by local figure skating clubs that were set to disco music. A new park mascot called Dudley, Dean of Dawgs, styled like Disneyland costumed characters, was introduced to the crowd.

The Knickerbocker Apartments at Fifth Avenue and Howard Street in Spokane were built in 1911 in the midst of the city’s great period of growth. Apartments and hotels were springing up to house the workers flooding into the city.

In April 1916, 80 to 100 members of the Spokane County Progressive Party held their county convention and elected 22 delegates for the state convention in June. The progressives, also nicknamed the Bull Moose Party after former President Theodore Roosevelt, were an offshoot of the Republican Party.

There are four buildings on the south side of the 200 block of West Riverside Avenue that date back to 1905 to 1909. They are some of the few existing single-room-occupancy hotels that once filled old Spokane. More than 150 such hotels housed workers from 1895 to 1915, when the city’s population exploded, quadrupling to more than 100,000 people in 20 years.

In 1979, two important downtown buildings were demolished to clear the way for Spokane’s tallest skyscraper.