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Then and Now: Main and Monroe

1930: The northeast corner of Monroe Street and Main Avenue was the site of a service station from the 1920s until the late 1960s, when Trent Avenue, now called Spokane Falls Boulevard, was extended from Lincoln to Monroe Street. The Sweeney Auto used car lot sat next to the gas station, run by Ernest Boberg and C.E. McLaughlin at that time. According to the newspaper classified ads in those days, most gas stations sold used autos. At right, the large white building is the Sears Roebuck store, built in 1930. When Trent Avenue was extended to Monroe Street in 1967, it claimed the parking lot behind the Sears store and the gas station property. (Charles Libby photo/THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW PHOTO ARCHIVE)
1930: The northeast corner of Monroe Street and Main Avenue was the site of a service station from the 1920s until the late 1960s, when Trent Avenue, now called Spokane Falls Boulevard, was extended from Lincoln to Monroe Street. The Sweeney Auto used car lot sat next to the gas station, run by Ernest Boberg and C.E. McLaughlin at that time. According to the newspaper classified ads in those days, most gas stations sold used autos. At right, the large white building is the Sears Roebuck store, built in 1930. When Trent Avenue was extended to Monroe Street in 1967, it claimed the parking lot behind the Sears store and the gas station property. (Charles Libby photo/THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW PHOTO ARCHIVE)
By Jesse Tinsley jesset@spokesman.com(509) 459-5378

For drivers stymied by the many one-way streets in downtown Spokane today, the story began in the mid-1960s.

A new east-west freeway, soon to be named Interstate 90, was under construction, and it prompted the city to make Lincoln and Monroe streets into a couplet to handle increased traffic. They were also working on a Washington-Stevens couplet, not for a freeway interchange, but to better move north-south traffic through the downtown area.

Main and Trent avenues also became a couplet. Eastbound traffic would take Main Avenue, where stores including The Bon Marché, The Crescent and JC Penney were the focus of downtown shopping.

Shoppers on westbound Trent Avenue needed an option for exiting the area besides the Post Street Bridge, so Trent Avenue needed to be extended.

The extension of Trent from Lincoln Street to Monroe would require taking the parking lot of the Spokane library, in the former Sears store, and the service station that had been at Monroe Street and Main Avenue since the 1920s.

The service station, owned by C.E. McLaughlin and Ernest Boberg and seen in a 1930 Charles Libby photo, carried Richfield petroleum products. The pair started a chain of local service stations in 1929.

The station at Main and Monroe became the Civic Center Super Service under a variety of owners starting in 1937. Gas stations had clustered along Monroe, advertising that customers could drop their car for service while they shopped nearby.

In the early 1960s, the gas station became Andy and Don’s Rainbow Service, operated by Andy Hightower and Donald Mutch. The Spokane Library owned the service station property and notified Hightower and Mutch they would have to move in 1967 to make way for the extension.

The Trent extension to Monroe was finished in 1968 and the complex meeting of Main, Trent and Monroe required that the Lincoln and Monaghan statues be moved slightly to align with the streets.

Many on the City Council wanted to rename Trent, a name associated with railroads and warehouses. Ideas tossed out included Expo Boulevard, Riverfront Boulevard and Front Street, the original name from the 1800s. The Spokane Park Board selected the name Spokane Falls Boulevard in February 1974.

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