Courthouse remodel will evoke history

As he climbed the steep stairs inside the tower of Spokane’s imposing French Renaissance Revival-style county courthouse Thursday, Ron Oscarson said he feels like he’s been in a game of Jenga for months.

Just like in the game, where solid structures can suddenly tumble, the old mortar that holds the bricks in the tower at 1116 W. Broadway Ave. has been crumbling. The courthouse flagpole was removed in 2006 after it started to lean, its support structure rotted away.

“We did exploratory surgery on the tower – it was much worse than we first thought,” said Oscarson, the county’s facilities manager.

Now, with $1 million from the state Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation and a $1 million match from Spokane County commissioners, a major courthouse renovation project is about to start. The 113-year-old building is listed on the state and national historic registers.

From May to October, scaffolding will go up on the full tower for the first time since the courthouse was built for $340,000 in 1895. The tower restoration alone, expected to be finished by November, will cost $1.5 million.

July will bring the first steps of an additional $2.6 million remodel of the building’s first floor.

The project, expected to last two years, includes a remodeling of the entry, moving several county government departments to make them more accessible to the public, and creating an archive of documents related to the building to ensure its historical character is maintained.

The chateau-style courthouse originally had a courtyard with windows looking down on it from the floors above.

Project officials have located some of the original barred windows in the courtyard. Spokane County’s last official hanging took place there in 1900.

Former Spokane City Councilman Mike Brewer accompanied journalists on a tour of the tower Thursday, saying he’s always wanted to see it. Brewer, 80, said he remembers the gallows.

“They were there until 1940,” Brewer said.

A “historically insensitive” remodel in 1940 incorporated the courtyard into the main building and blocked off the windows that flooded the upper stories with light, Oscarson said. A five-story annex was built in 1955.

While the courtyard and the windows won’t be restored to their original configuration, project officials will re-use some of the original wainscoting from a blocked-off portion of the landing between the third and fourth floors, repair the original slate roof and try to bring back some of the grandeur of the original courthouse interior while ensuring the building’s structural integrity.

In the tower, Oscarson pointed out water damage that has turned some of the original masonry into powder. In some places, flashes of sunlight could be seen between bricks.

In a large, airy room atop the tower, county officials have put up a tarp to keep chips of mortar from falling on people 160 feet below. The room has tall windows, finial-topped towers on four corners and balconies with views of Mount Spokane, the Spokane River and downtown Spokane. The walls bear initials of people who worked in the tower in 1901 and 1915.

The Spokane County Courthouse is the third-oldest in Washington that’s still serving the public. The architect, W.A. Ritchie, also designed the Jefferson County Courthouse, the King County Courthouse (demolished); the Clark County Courthouse (demolished), the Whatcom County Courthouse (demolished) and the Thurston County Courthouse, which is intact but is no longer used as a courthouse.

During the remodeling projects, the public will have to use the west entrance or enter the courthouse from the annex to the north.