Then and Now: Hotel Spokane

In the wake of the devastating 1889 fire in downtown Spokane, a group of partners bought a partially completed warehouse and hurriedly turned it into the five-story Hotel Spokane, one of the grandest built in the city. The Spokane Falls Review newspaper reported that, in February 1890, 150 workers were at the site, furiously trying to get the 200-room hotel open just months after the fire had turned more than 30 city blocks into blackened rubble.

The new hotel promised modern amenities just a short walk from the Northern Pacific Railway station. All 200 rooms were lit with electric lights and would have private telephones shortly after it opened. The hotel’s restaurant could seat hundreds of diners and featured a giant fireplace where roast beef turned on a spit while the aroma spread through the building. In 1903, the restaurant was named the Silver Grill.

In that era, the Hotel Spokane and other restaurants and clubs employed many Black waiters, cooks and housekeepers.

Hotel owner Ben Norman hired a Black youngster named Clarence Taylor who was selling newspapers outside the hotel in 1902. Taylor was 12.

Through the decades, Taylor moved up to wine steward, waiter and eventually the maître d’hotel. But Taylor was best known to generations of Spokane diners as the tableside carver of prime ribs and turkeys, serving from an elegant wheeled cart. He served Bing Crosby, Theodore Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover.

Taylor survived the racism of the era and ups and downs of the old hotel, which went into foreclosure a number of times throughout its history. The last meal Taylor served there was Christmas Day 1961, because the 13-story Ridpath Hotel across the street had purchased the 70-year-old hotel to tear down and build a new motel. The Ridpath Motor Inn added a pool, parking and convention space.

Taylor worked in the Ridpath’s rooftop restaurant for several more years and died in 1974 at age 83.

The Ridpath Motor Inn closed with the rest of the Ridpath Hotel in 2008 and has been mostly demolished. The hotel tower, after being closed for years, was remodeled into the Ridpath Club Apartments, where hotel rooms became micro-apartments.