Then and Now: Corbin Park
Circa 1905: The classic home designed and built by architect William W. Hyslop, center, was constructed around 1904. Most of the neighborhood surrounding Corbin Park in north Spokane was built between 1900 and 1925 and contained examples of classic home designs like American Foursquare, Bungalow, Arts & Crafts, Tudor Revival and Queen Anne. The Hyslop home stayed in the family until after the death of Robert Hyslop, son of William, and it was sold in 2004. (Spokesman-Review photo archives)
Two miles north of downtown Spokane and a few blocks off of Division Street, the area of Corbin Park was largely undeveloped in the 1880s and was used by the Washington and Idaho Fair Association for an annual fair and for horse racing. The fairs moved to other locations but the horse racing continued through the 1890s. Railroad builder Daniel C. Corbin owned the property and took over when the fair association couldn’t raise the money to buy it.
Corbin tore down the grandstand and platted 16 city blocks for homes around a four-blocklong neighborhood park, which he gave to the city of Spokane in 1900.
Corbin was born in 1832 in New Hampshire and headed to the Coeur d’Alene mining region during the height of activity there. He built mining and railroad infrastructure in Montana and Idaho but also focused on land development and projects in the Spokane area, too.
Corbin died in 1918.
In 1906, architect W.W. Hyslop built an elegant home on the west end of the park, which The Spokesman-Review wrote “embodies many artistic and novel features which the free fancy of an architect devised in planning a house for himself.” The home’s front lawn blended into the grass of the park before roads encircling the park were completed.
Hyslop also designed many homes around the neighborhood.
In 1907, Aubrey L. White of Spokane’s newly formed park board, commissioned Olmsted Brothers landscape architects to survey the young city’s current parks and land holdings. In their wide-ranging report submitted in 1909 were recommendations that Corbin Park should have a picnic shelter in the center, tennis courts, playgrounds and curving walkways, all active ways to use the park for a wide range of ages, including young children. The report said that a flat park “should be made as thoroughly useful to children as funds will permit, instead of being wholly given over to ornamental landscape gardening.”
In its early years, the 12-acre park had flowerbeds that enhanced its use as a picnic spot. But over the years, those have been replaced with sports facilities, playgrounds and open lawns.
In 1991, the Corbin Park Historic District, encompassing 35 acres and 83 homes, was put on the Spokane Register of Historic Places. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.