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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
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Then and Now: Ridpath Hotel fire

1950: The fire that destroyed the Ridpath Hotel in February 1950 was one of the worst in the city’s history, causing damage to almost every building on the block, though the Symons Block was mostly spared. The blaze started in the basement but no cause was determined. After the wreckage was cleared, the owners built a 12-story modern tower in 1951, incorporating most of the block. In the 1960s, they added convention rooms and a motel, the Ridpath Motor Inn, with a skywalk across West First Avenue. (Spokesman-Review Photo Archives)
1950: The fire that destroyed the Ridpath Hotel in February 1950 was one of the worst in the city’s history, causing damage to almost every building on the block, though the Symons Block was mostly spared. The blaze started in the basement but no cause was determined. After the wreckage was cleared, the owners built a 12-story modern tower in 1951, incorporating most of the block. In the 1960s, they added convention rooms and a motel, the Ridpath Motor Inn, with a skywalk across West First Avenue. (Spokesman-Review Photo Archives)
By Jesse Tinsley jesset@spokesman.com(509) 459-5378

The Ridpath Hotel was gutted by a nighttime fire Feb. 28, 1950. The Spokesman-Review called it one of the worst fires in Spokane’s history, but the 200 guests escaped and no one was injured.

The hotel was popular with travelers because it was near the Northern Pacific train depot and the building spanned the 500 block from West First Avenue to Sprague Avenue.

The three-alarm blaze caused a million -dollar loss and damaged the adjacent buildings to the east, which the Ridpath also owned. Modern fire doors stopped the flames from the west. The fire had started in the basement but an exact cause was never determined.

The old hotel had been built by William M. Ridpath, a veteran of the Civil War from Indiana who had worked as a school teacher and had studied law before he moved to Spokane in 1888. Once here, he worked as a lawyer and a prosecuting attorney, invested in the Le Roi mine in Rossland, British Columbia, and acquired several farms around the area.

He built the hotel in 1899, when train travel was peaking in popularity. He managed it himself until his death in 1914 at the age of 69.

With the Ridpath family still at the helm, a new 12-story modern tower was built in 1951. The top floor was a restaurant with floor-to-ceiling windows with spectacular views.

The hotel added the Ridpath Motor Inn with meeting rooms for convention across First Avenue, connected with a skywalk. In 1988, the family sold the hotel to a partnership that included West Coast Hotels.

Although the hotel continued to operate, it struggled to compete with newer, larger properties.

Under the ownership of Las Vegas hotelier Douglas Da Silva, who bought the hotel in 2006, the building was sold off in more than 30 individual ownership parcels, starting several years of neglect as owners juggled lawsuits and foreclosures and utilities were turned off.

In 2012, a new partnership slowly reassembled the ownership and began renovating the hotel rooms into one-room micro apartments with a few luxury residences on the upper floors.

Recently, the hotel has been fully rented, with most of the small apartments leased at affordable housing rates.

Jesse Tinsley can be reached at (509) 459-5378 or at jesset@spokesman.com.