Spokane Courthouse Tower

Spokane Courthouse Tower.

Spokane County Courthouse History

When the first ground was broken in the fall of 1893, Spokane was still a boomtown that had been suffering from the financial panic of 1893. The project itself was designed in part as a stimulant for a faltering economy in those hard times. At first, there was some bitterness from the initial decision to place the structure on the north bank of the Spokane River. Downtown business owners had hoped to keep the building in the central business district. Residents from the southern and western parts of the county lobbied the county commissioners to select a more rural location. One man even told the Board that if they put the courthouse in Spokane, then those outlying parts would secede and form a new county. There was also harsh criticism that the building itself was an extravagant waste of public funds.
Content for Courthouse Design

But the full story of the courthouse began almost a decade earlier when in 1887, colonel D.P. Jenkins donated the land and $1,000 for the construction of the new county courthouse. But it was not until 1893, when leaky roofs and other problems of the old courthouse became painfully apparent, that the Board of County Commissioners decided to act on Jenkins’ offer.

On June 7, 1893, the Board officially opened the design competition for the new structure of “brick and stone or stone as near fireproof as practical to include commodious vaults for records, plumbing, heating, sewerage, closets, and everything necessary for the courthouse and jail to cost no more than $250,000.” A prize would be awarded for the most original plan! Prizes were awarded as follows: Winning design 5% of the cost of construction, second prize $500, third prize $300, fourth prize $200.

The architect who submitted the winning design for the courthouse was W. A. Ritchie, then just 29 years old. He never attended a formal school of architecture, having received his initial training from a correspondence course conducted by the superintendent of architecture in the U.S. Treasury Department. Before moving to Spokane, he designed and supervised the construction of public buildings and courthouses in Seattle, Bellingham, Port Townsend, Vancouver and Olympia. He had arrived in Spokane just the year prior to winning the courthouse design competition. Kirtland Cutter, the renowned Spokane architect who designed the Monroe Street Bridge, took second place in the competition.

On August 4 1893, Mr. Ritchie submitted his detailed drawings for the new courthouse and the Board of County Commissioners ordered that notice to contractors be advertised in the Spokane newspapers, giving details of the plans of Mr. Ritchie. From Oct 25th to Oct. 28th, 1893, the commissioners studied submitted bids and finally ordered the contract to be awarded to David B. Fotheringham, and John Keenan was appointed superintendent of construction. Construction began in October 1893, but the building really began to go up the following spring. The brick was manufactured locally by Washington Brick and Lime Manufacturing Company of Spokane. The roof was made from imported slate shingles.

Work was suspended on the courthouse in March 1895 as a quarrel broke out between Ritchie and the superintendent of construction. The commissioners asked Ritchie to resign, he refused, and a grand jury investigated charges of ‘Fraud and Swindling” in connection with the courthouse. The jurors concluded: “We have sifted these charges thoroughly, find them untrue, malicious and wicked, having been made by parties who must have known differently, and made for the purpose of misleading the people generally, and this surely and particular. Hard times, prejudice and disappointment must have been at the root of the matter. We find the courthouse to be one of the most substantial and well-built offices in this or any other state, and built in accordance with the plans and specifications, excepting changes that were duly authorized. We find no evidence of boodle or corruption and we believe there has been none.” The courthouse was finally completed in November 1895. All county officials had moved into quarters in the new courthouse by Nov. 20, 1895.

Shot this with my Panasonic point and shoot camera.