Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

The city was still clearly enraptured with the Davenport Hotel, which opened the day before, on Sept. 1, 1914.

The Spokesman-Review’s editorial page made the case that this was no mere hotel. It was a symbol and a metaphor – a “speaking monument of the enterprise and public spirit of the Inland Empire.”

“The erection here of a hotel costing $2.5 million and worthy of New York and London, will be noted all over the United States,” the editorial said. “The opening of such a hotel in a city of (this size) indicates to the country at large that the importance of Spokane is not to be inferred merely from its size. The Davenport implies that within and around Spokane exist great potentialities and resources that stand on the threshold of extensive development.”

The editorial said the city’s situation demanded such a hotel. The region had an eye toward “the tides of travel to be turned this way through the Panama Canal” – reflecting the optimistic notion that the new canal would open a new era of prosperity for the entire West.

The hotel was, in other words, “evidence in granite and marble of the forward look of Spokane.”

No one could accuse The Spokesman-Review of downplaying the opening. On the previous Sunday, it had printed a 10-page Davenport Hotel special section. Sample headline: “Elevator System Excels.”