It's been a few weeks since I've been able to post updates about the weekly Then and Now columns in the Monday Spokesman-Review. 

After finishing the column about the Benewah Market, owned by the Benewah Creamery, Bruce Butterworth of Contract Design Associates pointed out that his company, which has been in the old Benewah building on East Sprague for more than 15 years, had to work around and change some of the infrastructure left over from the Benewah Creamery, which was there through the 1960s. There was a large vat built into the floor for holding the milk before it was processed into butter or ice cream. He pointed out the large pipe connection, which looked like it would be used by the fire department to connect to a standpipe to fight a fire, was likely where milk trucks would connect their tanks to transfer fresh milk into the building (see photo above). Butterworth said he had to fill the in-ground tank with gravel before paving it over. See the Benewah Market column here.

Regarding the column about the New Transfer Market, which is now Milford's Fish House on North Monroe, Sharon Van de Vanter of Diamond Lake called to tell me that the proprietor, Anton "Tony" Held was her grandfather and she has many fond memories of her grandpa, whose market didn't last long at Monroe St. and Broadway Ave. but who worked for many years running the meat department at Burgan's Market on Division St. She remembers getting a free hot dog out of the cold case when she went to visit her grandfather at the market. She told a story about how her grandfather, the New Transfer proprietor who operated the meat section, would get into teasing spats with his brother-in-law, who ran the green grocery section. After getting fed up with his brother-in-law's constant teasing, he grabbed a ham knuckle bone and launched it at the head of the green grocer across the room. The errant bone missed but cracked the large plate glass window facing the street. 

The upcoming column for May 2 is about Teddy Roosevelt's 1903 visit to Spokane. The visit, with a speech downtown near Lincoln Street and Main Avenue, was the biggest gathering in Spokane's history. A reader named Nancy Runge donated a photo showing the size of the crowd. Although Roosevelt's Spokane stop was little more than a parade down Riverside and a speech downtown, his month-long trip to the west was a chance for the old Rough Rider to indulge his love of horsemanship and the outdoors. In Wyoming, he accepted the invitation to ride on horseback from Laramie to Cheyenne, some 65 miles away. Many in his party didn't want to ride that far on horseback but Roosevelt chose a spirited mount and took off at a quick gallop, telling others to "keep up if you can."