Then and Now: Frankfurt Block

Spokane’s Frankfurt Block, named after the hometown of owner Johann “Dutch Jake” Goetz, was open only a few weeks when the great fire of 1889 swept it away. Goetz and partner Harry Baer were devastated. They had been running bars, hotels and gambling joints around the region near logging towns and mining camps. Goetz, famous for having staked prospector Noah Kellogg, had made a mining fortune in the mid-1880s. He had spent the money on his own lavish wedding, complete with wagon loads of free beer, and a new four-story building at Howard and Main. After the fire, Jake opened again in an old circus tent and the two men were back in business. Eventually, they put up a single-story building, which they later expanded to two stories, on the old site. Architecture historian Robert Hyslop called the new Frankfurt only a “half-hearted” effort to rebuild. But after five years of bang-up business there, they built the Coeur d’Alene Hotel one block north, where Goetz’s plans came to complete fruition. Drink, gambling, live entertainment, food and haircuts could all be found there. At its peak, 144 people worked at Goetz and Baer. Martin Kalez, father of Spokane historian Jay Kalez, arrived in Spokane a few days after the fire. He had cooked for railroad crews in the Cascades and figured there would be work in Spokane. Before he could finish his first drink at Jake’s tent, he and all his friends were hired to cook and serve. “Old Jake was the biggest-hearted Dutchman that ever lived,” Kalez said, though Goetz was actually German. “And as honest as the day is long.” Goetz died in 1927. The new Frankfurt was torn down in 1971 to make way for the Washington Mutual tower. The building is now Chase Bank, which took over Washington Mutual in 2008. – Jesse Tinsley