Jesse Tinsley

Fidelity Mutual Savings erected their new eight-story building at Howard Street and Riverside Avenue in 1953. A few years later, some smaller buildings north of the bank were torn down around 1957, and Fidelity added north-facing retail spaces, calling the area Fidelity Plaza.

As a teen, Joseph Merton Rosauer worked in the store his parents operated in East Spokane in the 1920s and early 1930s. At 19 years old, “Mert” Rosauer borrowed $1,000 from his parents and opened his own store on East Sprague Avenue.

Paying for parking in downtown Spokane was controversial from the beginning. Customers of downtown establishments resented paying to leave their cars on the street while merchants acknowledged that it could discourage shoppers.

It was almost midnight on March 27, 1971, when police dispatch in Post Falls called Officer Harry Button to the Spokane Street bridge over the Spokane River for an accident. Button had been Post Falls fire chief from 1957 to 1960 and a fire commissioner before becoming a police officer. Riding along with Button was Allan Chaffin, who was disabled but worked as a volunteer dispatcher for the fire department.

In an area that was once a seasonal village of Spokane Indians along Latah Creek, a neighborhood was platted as Stafford’s Addition in 1888. But it became better known as Vinegar Flats because of the tangy aroma from a vinegar production plant that opened in 1889.

Police estimated there were 10,000 children lined along the route of the Christmas parade Nov. 22, 1957. It was one of the largest crowds seen in downtown Spokane that year.

In 1892, young civil engineer Byron C. Riblet recommended that the Spokane Board of County Commissioners accept the bid from the San Francisco Bridge Company for a new steel bridge over the Spokane River at Barker Road. Riblet would become a renowned innovator in mining, railroads and other industries.

During the 20 years it took to build and complete Interstate 90 through Spokane to the Idaho border, progress was sometimes slow, fraught with challenging excavation project and elevated bridges. Once complete, traffic volume grew rapidly.