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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
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Then and Now: Spokane had its own Empire State Building

2019 – The Great Western Building, built in 1900 and originally called the Empire State Building, sits on the corner of Lincoln Street and Riverside Avenue in downtown Spokane, shown Friday, May 31, 2019. The Empire name came from Charles Sweeny, a partner in the building, who was from New York and named his mining company Empire State. (Jesse Tinsley / The Spokesman-Review)
2019 – The Great Western Building, built in 1900 and originally called the Empire State Building, sits on the corner of Lincoln Street and Riverside Avenue in downtown Spokane, shown Friday, May 31, 2019. The Empire name came from Charles Sweeny, a partner in the building, who was from New York and named his mining company Empire State. (Jesse Tinsley / The Spokesman-Review)

Spokane’s Empire State Building, built in 1900 at Riverside Avenue and Lincoln Street, was named “Empire State” because the New York-born businessman and building owner Charles Sweeny had a company of the same name.

Sweeny spent 20 years searching for his fortune, including running a general merchandise store in Spokane and opening a mine in Wardner, Idaho, in 1886. When the 1893 financial panic left him stranded, he partnered with the investor F. Lewis Clark and within five years was riding high again from a boom in metals prices.

At only six stories and 96 feet tall, it would never be mistaken for New York City’s 102-story skyscraper that opened in 1931.

But Spokane’s Empire State Building was likely the first steel-framed, fireproof brick structure in town. It was designed by architect John K. Dow, who also designed the Lincoln County Courthouse, the Legion building, the Masonic Temple, and the August Paulsen Building. Dow arrived in Spokane at age 27 in 1889, the year of the city’s great fire, and his architectural firm, with partner Loren L. Rand, helped rebuild the city.

The Empire State Building was filled with law offices, as it was across the street from the Post Office and Federal Building. The ground floor space was occupied, starting around 1910, by a Joyner Drug Store on the corner until the late 1930s.

The corner was taken over by Mower and Flynne Dry Goods in 1940. In 1947, Britton’s Department Store took over for several years. The corner was vacant from 1952 to 1955, then Washington Water Power Co. moved a customer service office there in 1956, staying until the early 1970s, even as many of the utility’s operations moved out to the company’s 1959 headquarters on Mission Avenue.

Great Western Savings had been next door, on the ground floor of the Empire State Building since the early 1950s.

The building was renamed the Great Western Building in 1961. It keeps that name, although Great Western Savings & Loan – acquired as Great Western Bank by Washington Mutual in 1997 – moved out. Washington Mutual failed in 2008 and its assets were absorbed by Chase Bank.

Sweeny died in 1916. Dow died in 1961, at age 99.

Correction: Building manager Alicia Barbieri of Goodale & Barbieri noted that the Great Western Building was renamed the Empire State Building back in 2011, following extensive exterior renovations, including the name “Empire State” in sandstone script at the building entrance.