Cutter is Spokane’s heritage

Spokane’s architect, Kirtland Cutter, built the Western Union Life Insurance company’s building (later to become the Chancery) in 1909. It was designed to look like the house of a 17th-century Dutch merchant. It was a cottage-like structure and was meant to humanize the insurance company.

The great, white building we drive by on “Spokane’s most beautiful street” (National Register Riverside Historic District) is the remodeled expansion, which was designed by one of Cutter’s employees, later a competitor, Gustav Pehrson. Pehrson totally reimagined the building in the ostentatious, trending style of the day — Grecian — and engulfed the original Cutter building inside the expansion. (Ref: “Kirtland Cutter: Architect in the Land of Promise” -Henry C Matthews.)

All of this is to say, there is history here: Spokane’s history. Kirtland Cutter got famous for his unique style of architecture in Spokane. From here, he got commissions in other cities and other states. Many of his achievements have already been lost to development or fire, and we are culturally poorer for it. Kirtland Cutter is not just a famous architect, he’s OUR famous architect.

Please do not let this outstanding reminder of Spokane’s impact on the world stage become an apartment building for the wealthy. This is not about “housing.” Puhleeze.

Abil Bradshaw

Spokane