Then and Now: Alexander's

Phil W. Alexander was born in Denver, arrived in Spokane as a boy, went to Lewis and Clark High School and Washington State University. In 1927, he started working at the Whitehouse department store as a buyer.

Within a few years, the newspapers were calling him seasonally to get his thoughts on the changing fashions for women and men. From all accounts, he was personable, well-liked and civic-minded. Around 1934, he opened his own women’s apparel store, simply called Alexander’s, at 117 N. Wall Street in a plain four-story building that originally housed early telephone equipment. His store was not related to the Alexander’s department store chain founded in Lewiston, Idaho, in the 1870s or the more famous Alexander’s department store in New York City.

Alexander’s store sold quality women’s wear and specialized in furs in the heart of the city’s shopping district. Women with expensive fur garments often had them serviced and stored at Alexander’s during the warmer months of the year.

His retail space grew from two of the four floors to all four. He bought the building in 1938.

After more than a dozen years in business, he sold the building and the business in 1948 and took an executive position with a Chicago department store and, later, Brooks Brothers in New York City.

The building would be taken down in 1949 to make way for a major expansion of the Crescent department store.

But Alexander wasn’t through with Spokane. In 1960 he was lured back to become general manager of the Bon Marche store, which had expanded a few years earlier.

As Alexander was busy with his own businesses, he also worked with civic and business groups. He led the Retail Trade Bureau of the Chamber of Commerce, and worked with Greater Spokane, Camp Fire, the Spokane Symphony and the city’s Park Board. He helped build the Parkade parking garage and form the Cox Cable company. He donated a flock of swans to live in the Manito Park pond.

Alexander died in 1996 at the age of 91.

“He had a knack for bringing people together,” said friend Ed McWilliams. He added that in the time it took for Alexander to walk across the Bon Marche’s sales floor, “he’d have talked to 30 customers. That’s why people liked to shop there.”

Photo captions:

1949 - Alexander's women's apparel was housed in a 1892 building designed to house the switching equipment of an early telephone company at 117 N. Wall Street. The building was redesigned to hold the upscale women's wear store and the facade was decorated with terra cotta tile. Founder Phil W. Alexander sold the business in 1948 and took a job as a department store executive in Chicago and later at Brooks Brothers in New York. There were several newspapaer stories about the idea of moving the whole building, but it was torn down in 1949 to allow for the expansion of the Crescent store. 

2022 - Today, the seven-story Crescent building is a mixed use retail building, but was home to Spokane's homegrown department store for downtown shoppers until its demise in the early 1990s. Once the main Crescent building at Main and Wall was completed, the store complex stretched for the entire frontage of the two streets.