The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper The Spokesman-Review
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
Current Temperature
36°F
Current Conditions
Overcast clouds
View complete weather report

Color Scheme

Subscribe now
Jesse Tinsley

Jesse Tinsley

Current Position: photojournalist

Jesse Tinsley joined The Spokesman-Review in 1989. He currently is a photojournalist in the Photo Department covering daily news and shoots drone photography.

Email
jesset@spokesman.com
Phone
(509) 459-5378

All Stories

News >  Spokane

Then and Now: In a different era, this building was Spokane’s ‘school for backward children’

At the turn of the 20th century, Spokane was booming and public schools were bursting at the seams. Also growing were the number of students, because of developmental delays or disabilities, assigned to “special classes.” The Spokane school district, organized in 1899, built the first school for special classes, the Eugene Field School, in 1902 at the defunct Spokane College in the area of what is now Kendall Yards.
News >  Spokane

Then and Now: Lawrence ‘Dutch’ Groshoff

Lawrence “Dutch” Groshoff was born around 1903 and grew up in Spokane’s Catholic schools, showing a talent for music at a young age as he learned piano, guitar and banjo. He would become friends with classmate Harry Lillis “Bing” Crosby.
News >  Spokane

Then and Now: Shadle Center

After World War II, Spokane boomed with new retail centers starting in the 1950s. It drew established downtown stores to suburban shopping centers like NorthTown and University City.
News >  Spokane

Then and now: Top Hat Drive-In

In a 2005 Spokesman-Review story, Ross Taylor, of Spokane, talked about growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, when working class boys often relished the prospect of a fistfight. He said the Top Hat Drive-In, 2101 E. Sprague Ave., was where many fights started or concluded. The East Central hangout was one of Spokane’s first drive-in restaurants, where uniformed car hops served food on trays that hung on the passenger windows.
News >  Spokane

Then and Now: Eisenhower in Spokane

On Monday, Oct. 6, 1952, the private train “Eisenhower Express,” carrying Dwight D. Eisenhower and his wife Mamie, rolled into the Great Northern Railway depot in downtown Spokane. Just a month before Election Day, the general got out for a quick speech, striding past rows of Boy Scouts standing at attention at the station.
News >  Spokane

Then and Now: Inland Empire Days

In 1936, the Great Depression had taken its toll on retail business. The Spokane Chamber of Commerce’s Retail Trade Bureau created a new holiday to spur shopping: Inland Empire Days.
News >  Spokane

Then and Now: Hotel Spokane

In the wake of the devastating 1889 fire in downtown Spokane, a group of partners bought a partially completed warehouse and hurriedly turned it into the five-story Hotel Spokane, one of the grandest built in the city. The Spokane Falls Review newspaper reported that, in February 1890, 150 workers were at the site, furiously trying to get the 200-room hotel open just months after the fire had turned more than 30 city blocks into blackened rubble.
News >  Spokane

Then and Now: Bridges over Latah Creek

While the Spokane River slowed north- and south-bound travel in early Spokane, Latah Creek also presented a challenge to the east-west flow of traffic. The creek was once commonly called Hangman Creek, a macabre reference to the execution of Native leaders by the U.S. Army under the direction of General George Wright in 1858.

Then and Now: Ice skating at Wandermere

In the early 20th century, many businesses would try to attract skaters to frozen ponds around Spokane with convenient parking, snack bars, music played over loudspeakers, warming huts and lights for night skating.
News >  Spokane

Then and Now: Community Christmas tree

Spokane was celebrating Christmas before the city was chartered or Washington became a state. In 1874, the entire population of Spokane, made up of five families with eight children, celebrated with a tree and a simple supper.
News >  Spokane

Then and Now: Parkade Plaza

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.
News >  Spokane

Then and Now: Spokane Valley Rosauers

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.
News >  Spokane

Then and Now: Parking meters

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.

Then and Now: Post Falls bridge collapse

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.
News >  Spokane

Then and Now: Vinegar Flats

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.
News >  Spokane

Then and Now: 1957 Christmas parade

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.
News >  Spokane

Then and Now: Barker Road Bridge

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.
News >  Spokane

Then and Now: Interstate 90 connections

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.
News >  Spokane

Then and Now: Annual turkey giveaway

Many churches and charities have offered free turkey dinners at Thanksgiving, but the tradition of giving away food baskets with a frozen turkey and groceries is only about 40 years old.
News >  Spokane

Then and Now: Spokane Valley Freeway

Even before the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 created the funding mechanism for a national highway system, the Washington State Department of Transportation was already working on improving the U.S. Highway 10 corridor through Spokane with its replacement.