Browne’s Addition Festival Will Revive Tradition

Neighbors living in Browne’s Addition are celebrating their history next month with a summer festival at Coeur d’Alene Park.

The Browne’s Addition Celebration on Aug. 9 will run from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. with a special tree-planting ceremony at 7 p.m.

The setting is fitting since Coeur d’Alene Park is the oldest park in Spokane.

Residents of the area like to call Browne’s Addition Spokane’s first neighborhood.

It was platted by J.J. Browne in 1883 and holds some of the city’s most historically important homes.

Like many inner-city neighborhoods, Browne’s Addition suffers from an image problem of too much crime, said festival organizer Mary Olsen.

Olsen and others who live in the neighborhood say they are committed to maintaining its livability, and crime is not as big a problem as many people think. Organizers see the festival as a way to show off their efforts.

“We are trying to bring the neighborhood together,” Olsen said.

Browne’s Addition formerly sponsored an annual summer festival, but the event was discontinued six years ago. This year’s festival will revive that tradition.

Olsen said the festival should help people understand how significant Browne’s Addition is to Spokane.

Olsen is restoring the West Riverside home of R.C. Dillingham, who made a fortune manufacturing paint in Spokane. The home was turned into apartments years ago, and now Olsen and her husband, Dale, are reclaiming it as a single-family home.

That kind of dedication to history is what the Aug. 9 festival will display.

Olsen has acquired copies of the original legal documents involving the purchase of the Browne’s Addition property and its platting and resale for homes.

The display, to be shown at the festival, includes photographs of Browne and his wife as well as his business partner, A.M. Cannon, who developed Cannon’s Addition just to the south. The collection also includes photographs of their grand homes, which are now gone.

Browne and Cannon bought land for the subdivisions from the U.S. General Land Office at auction in 1883 for $2 per acre and began selling lots that year for $350 apiece, Olsen said.

They deeded the 9.76-acre park to the city jointly from the two additions in 1891. The two additions comprise 314 acres.

Birdseye View maps of the neighborhood drawn around the turn of the century are also in the collection.

Olsen said the festival will mark the first time so many early public records have been shown.

But the historic records are only part of the elaborately planned festival.

On Arbor Day in 1894, women members of the Sorosis Club planted a Chinese elm in the park. The tree is now gone, so current club members are planting a new yellowwood tree near the gazebo in a ceremony at 7 p.m.

Hangman Valley Gardens is donating the tree.

The ceremony will also include a rededication of park improvements.

Throughout the day, the gazebo will exhibit women’s gowns from the turn of the century. The gowns come from private collections.

Horse-drawn carriage rides will be offered along with walking tours of the neighborhood.

Some 30 artists will be on hand along with displays from various organizations. The festival will have live music, a food court and a Victorian tea garden.

A children’s corner will feature pony-cart rides, storytelling, clowns, face painting and a display by the Children’s Museum.

, DataTimes