100 years ago in Spokane: Why the era’s version of a phonebook was a big deal when the 1921 edition came out

Spokane’s 1921 Polk’s City Directory – the era’s version of a phonebook – arrived from the printers and contained prime fodder for city boosters.

It had over 7,000 more names than the 1920 directory, which indicated that the city was growing. This had been a sore spot in Spokane after the 1920 census showed the city’s population had stagnated over the previous 10 years.

The 1921 directory estimated a population of about 120,000 in Spokane “and environs,” far above the 1920 census count of 104,437. The directory included places like Hillyard, which was not yet in the city of Spokane.

Other factoids:

• The most common name in Spokane was Johnson, with 627 entries. It was followed, in order, by Smith, Anderson and Brown.
• Pavement was still rare in Spokane. The city had 72 miles of paved streets and 393 miles of “graded” streets.
• The city comprised 39

¼

• square miles, or 25,120 acres.
• The shortest last name belonged to Fritz Ek.
• There were 34 bridges in Spokane.

The sheer heft of the directory was impressive. It was 838 pages.

On this day

(From Associated Press)

1765: Britain enacted the Quartering Act, requiring American colonists to provide temporary housing to British soldiers.

1958: Elvis Presley was inducted into the U.S. Army at the draft board in Memphis, Tennessee, before boarding a bus for Fort Chaffee, Arkansas.