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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
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Then and Now: New Rookery Building

1934: The New Rookery Building was the home of the Joyner’s Original Cut-Rate Drugs when it opened in 1934, then Densow’s drugstore after 1944. Proprietors Wilbur N. Joyner, then Bert Densow, were professional pharmacists who eschewed patent medicines with dubious effectiveness. Their stores also carried cosmetics, tobacco products, photo supplies and gift items as well. Joyner had several locations around the region, as did the Densow family. The three-story building had many professional offices on upper floors. The drugstore closed in 1963. (Spokesman-Review photo archives)
1934: The New Rookery Building was the home of the Joyner’s Original Cut-Rate Drugs when it opened in 1934, then Densow’s drugstore after 1944. Proprietors Wilbur N. Joyner, then Bert Densow, were professional pharmacists who eschewed patent medicines with dubious effectiveness. Their stores also carried cosmetics, tobacco products, photo supplies and gift items as well. Joyner had several locations around the region, as did the Densow family. The three-story building had many professional offices on upper floors. The drugstore closed in 1963. (Spokesman-Review photo archives)
By Jesse Tinsley jesset@spokesman.com(509) 459-5378

Before the southeast corner of Riverside Avenue and Howard Street became a parking lot, it was an important retail and office location since 1890.

After the great fire of 1889, five buildings as tall as six stories were built and called “The Rookery,” the name for a cluster of birds’ nests high in the trees. The imagery was suggested by irregular and odd corridors, light wells and rooflines.

The dated and somewhat shabby buildings were torn down in 1933 and replaced with a unified three-story structure faced with white glazed terra cotta tile in a late Art Deco style, designed by architect Gustav Pehrson. The New Rookery Building filled quickly with professional offices upstairs and with Joyner’s Original Cut-Rate Drugs on the main floor in 1934.

Wilbur N. Joyner, born in Dexter, Michigan, in 1876, worked his way through school at the Chicago School of Pharmacy. After a few years of work in Columbus, Ohio, he married and moved to Spokane in 1907. In 1908, Joyner bought into a drug store in the Empire State Building at Riverside Avenue and Lincoln Avenue. Joyner went on to establish multiple locations downtown and though he died in 1926, his wife Nanette opened and managed the Joyner pharmacy at Riverside and Howard for several years until Bert Densow purchased it around 1944.

Densow was the son of businessman Louis Densow, born in 1880, and moved to the region in 1902. He ran a Ford dealership and other businesses in Pullman and Wilbur, Washington. He retired to Spokane in 1932.

Bert studied pharmacy at Washington State College and started work in 1920. He bought Joyner’s store at 527 W. Riverside Ave. in the New Rookery in downtown Spokane in 1944, keeping Joyner’s name for a few years. He also owned drug stores in Wallace and Kellogg, Idaho, with his brother, George, and other locations around Spokane. A store in Richland, Washington, still carried the name Densow’s Medical Supplies. Bert’s brother Stanley opened Densow’s Appliance Stores around 1931 and had multiple shops in Spokane. Bert died in 1952 at the age of 45. Pharmacist Oscar Reiman took over the store but closed it in 1963 when he retired.

After being home to drug stores, it housed Equitable Savings and Loan and later, Ben Franklin Savings and Loan. In the 1990s, it housed a St. Vincent DePaul thrift store.

The New Rookery was torn down in 2006, along with the adjacent Mohawk Building and is now a parking lot.