Then and now: John Deere building
Farming innovator John Deere, born in Vermont in 1804, settled in Illinois and invented a modern plow in 1837 that pulled easily through the prairie soils of the Midwest. After Deere died in 1886, his plows and other implements were being sold in Spokane at Rasher and Kingman, a local wagon and farm implement dealer, in the 1890s. The John Deere Plow Comof Kansas City, as it was named in 1889, built a Spokane warehouse that opened in 1910 at 102 W. International Way, near the path of today’s North River Drive.
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1973: The 1910 John Deere building at 102 W.102 International Way was donated by the company John Deere to the city of Spokane in 1973 for use during Expo ’74. It was used as a warehouse and staging area. After the World’s Fair, ownership of the building reverted to the Union Pacific Railroad, but the city parks department continued using it. The building was torn down in 1983. The land was purchased by Pacific Securities Co. and a parcel later sold to Baney Corp. to build an Oxford Suites hotel.
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Present day: This Oxford Suites hotel at 115 E. North River Drive sits on the property where the John Deere company warehouse stood from 1910 until 1983. The land once belonged to the Spokane International Railway, then passed to the Union Pacific Railroad. The Baney Corp. of Bend, Ore., bought the land from an investment company around 1998 and built the Oxford Suites Hotel, which opened in 2001.
Jesse Tinsley The Spokesman-Review Buy this photo
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