Inland Empire News Building

Inland Empire News Building when it was an actual News Building

        Located in the Hillyard Market Street District, the Inland Empire News Building was built in 1903. The two-story brick masonry building was originally built for furniture merchant John Stough, who occupied the building for eleven years from 1903 to 1914. From 1914 to 1919 the building was occupied by another furniture merchant named Frank Murray. Having served as a furniture store for the better part of 16 years, the building eventually became the source of the local Hillyard paper, the Inland Empire News, before later becoming the Northside Post. The building maintained a printing business for over thirty years, surviving into the 1950’s.

Early photo of Market Street

 The block design of the Inland Empire News Building fit in with the rest of the “Market Street” district buildings that were erected between 1901 to 1948. These were second generation buildings on Market Street, with most of the earlier, pre-1900 wood buildings being destroyed by fire. As the Historic Preservation Office has to say, “The simple one and two-story buildings represent the construction, materials and design of early twentieth century commercial structures associated with a typical working-class town such as Hillyard, a community platted in 1892. In that same year the Great Northern Railroad began construction of its Western Regional Terminal Facility, and its huge rail yard and locomotive shops. With strong economic ties to activities and business generated by Great Northern, Hillyard continued to expand as the railroad prospered.” Experiencing a subsequent increase in wealth, Market Street between the years 1901-1903 and 1906-1907 saw the construction of seven new buildings that stand today, including the Inland Empire News Building.

Present day

            Presently the building is occupied by ‘Market Street Antiques’, which won third place in the 2012 Inlander best antiques store in the Spokane area. 

Shadle-Comstock House

           

A young Willis A. Ritchie.

The Shadle-Comstock house on West 9^th Avenue was built in 1911 by Willis A. Ritchie. Set in the Cliff/Cannon Neighborhood, it is one of four historic houses built in Tudor Revival style, modeling the 18^th and 19^th century “black and white” row houses built in the English village of Chesterton. As listed on historicspokane.org “the home displays a steeply pitched roof with a slight flare at the eaves, multiple cross gables, three prominent front-facing gables at the facade, deep bargeboards with tapered tails, a covered front porch at the first floor, corner boards, and false half-timbering with stucco infill. Influenced by the Craftsman style, the front porch has a low-pitched hip roof and is supported by thick square wood columns. The porch deck is supported by a foundation made of black basalt rock. A steeply pitched gabled portico projects over the front steps at the porch roof and is embellished with false half-timbering.” The  interior is highlighted by a formal fireplace with glazed ceramic tile, credited to Earnest Batchelder out of Pasadena, California, founder of Batchelder Tile company and known as “a leading designer in the American Arts and Crafts movement.” 

Clark County Courthouse (Postcard 1910)

Thurston County Courthouse (1905)

Willis A. Ritchie began his “largely self-taught” career in Ohio and Kansas before maturing to become one of the premier architects in Washington, after moving to Spokane in January 1892. Taken from an 1893 excerpt from An Illustrated History of the State of Washington (written by Rev. H.K. Hines) upon his arrival in Washington, Ritchie was responsible for such designs as (the numbers to the right are the original costs) “the Clark county courthouse at Vancouver, Washington, $40,000; Thurston county courthouse, Olympia, Washington, $115,000; a school building at Wallace, Idaho, $11,000; Prescott and Lincoln school buildings, Anaconda, Montana, costing $15,000 and $25,000 respectively; and Spokane city building, $60,000.” He also took first place in a Washington State building competition for the World's Fair. The Jefferson County courthouse in Port Townsend, which resembles the Shadle-Comstock house in overall style, in particular displays the depths of Ritchie’s creative talent as an architect.

Jefferson County Courthouse

James Comstock, who had the house built, was a New York native who upon moving west to Spokane in 1889 became the Vice-President of the Spokane Dry Goods Company, President of the Dry Good Realty Company, and served on the Spokane City Council from 1894-1899 with two of those years as the city mayor. The house was originally lived in by his daughter Josie Shadle-Comstock and her husband E.A. Shadle. Shadle also happened to be a close business associate with James Comstock, acting as the Treasurer of the Spokane Dry Goods Realty Company and as a trustee of the Spokane Dry Goods Company. Thus the reason for the house’s name, “Shadle-Comstock” becomes clear. Both the Shadle and Comstock families are well known around Spokane for their philanthropy, contributing heavily to a multitude of city parks, schools and other buildings.