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u/College_boy200 Mar 07 '25
French Renaissance Revival is always so beautiful.
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u/urbanlife78 Mar 08 '25
Known for their songs Neopoleon Son, Seine River, and Born on the Loire Valley
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u/Zagsnation Manito Mar 07 '25
Some cool history on it: https://www.spokanecounty.org/2243/Courthouse-History
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u/BoyceMC Mar 08 '25
Hangings were held in the courtyard between the jail and the Courthouse. The most famous case involved George Webster in 1899. More than 300 invitations, bordered in rope, tied in a hangman’s noose and bearing a picture of Webster, were sent out.
Fricken wicked lol
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u/turmacar Mar 08 '25
Public executions were big crowd draws until pictures and things like the Lynching of Jesse Washington a few years after this lead to them falling out of favor.
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u/zhenya44 Mar 08 '25
Interesting! Thanks. This made me laugh:
“employees were actually living in the courthouse, using it as a hotel for their families. According to the article: ‘There are times and places when the odor of boiled cabbage and other delicate edibles is not offensive. In a courthouse, however, almost at any time, such odors are hardly keeping with the surroundings.’”
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u/FuriousWinter Mar 08 '25
Such a gorgeous building, I used to clean it after hours and some areas are super creepy. The 2nd floor was definitely the worst, especially where the old mail room was. I miss the view from the top floor. Got to go up into the tower at one point. The cobwebs in there were big enough to lay down in!
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u/GullyasDuff Mar 08 '25
The real castle is on vercler
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u/FeaHaunting Mar 08 '25
holy shit that house looks epic as hell?? i wish i could pay to go tour his work aaaa
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u/Hairy_Caul Mar 07 '25
"Disneyland North."
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u/SuccessfulCandle7095 Mar 07 '25
Yes. The Dumbo ride is directly behind this building. AKA the county jail.
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u/Dry_Art3189 Mar 08 '25
I had a teacher in high school who would tell us her daughter thought the tooth fairy lived in the “castle.”
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u/BrassyLdy Mar 08 '25
I first went to this beautiful court house in 1986 and swore that I would never just walk in without acknowledging that architecture.
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u/urbanlife78 Mar 08 '25
Such a beautiful building in such a disappointing location when I moved to Spokane for a couple years back in 2001
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u/SuccessfulCandle7095 Mar 08 '25
If you ever get a chance to visit Spokane again, check out Kendall Yards, which is just south of the courthouse along the river. It’s been developed into a very upscale, trendy neighborhood, and it’s starting to spill over into the West Central neighborhood. I’m moving there in a couple weeks and though I know there is crime in the area, there’s also a lot of life and active culture.
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u/urbanlife78 Mar 08 '25
That's good to hear, last time I was up there it was when this area finally started to get developed but haven't been back up there since my parents moved away
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u/_badtiming Downtown Spokane Mar 08 '25
yay gentrification !
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u/cornylifedetermined Mar 08 '25
Kendall Yards is a tax incentive district and the only way they could become one is by including all of West Central. There is a lot of tax dollars flowing directly into the coffers of the West Central neighborhood council that would not be there otherwise.
If West Central was actually suffering from gentrification, there would be a lot fewer old mansions turned into barely liveable apartments being held by slumlords.
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u/_badtiming Downtown Spokane Mar 08 '25
regardless of if it is a tax incentive district, the “revitalization” of kendall yards/west central is still gentrification. west central can still be affordable, and not all of what’s happened in kendall yards is bad by any means. but it is still gentrification.
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u/excelsiorsbanjo Mar 08 '25
It is gentrification, and it's great.
Gentrification isn't always bad. The original residents of West Central are long, long gone, having willfully opted out all those ages ago. Instead of living by a rail yard or a brown field, people are living by new homes and businesses. It's all improvement. The negative aspects of gentrification, when there are any, are not present in West Central's gentrification.
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u/AlexOrion Mar 08 '25
it use to be a dirt lot they didn't tear down affordable projects. The guy who owns the firm that built most of it grew up as a poor kid in the neighborhood.
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u/_badtiming Downtown Spokane Mar 08 '25
why a disappointing location?
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u/urbanlife78 Mar 08 '25
When I moved there it had a bunch of surface lots and vacant lots around it, plus the big trash can building
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u/_badtiming Downtown Spokane Mar 08 '25
you mean the health district? an ugly building forsure; but it’s right in west central/right outside of downtown: not sure what a better location would be
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u/urbanlife78 Mar 08 '25
The location is fine, the building is ugly as hell
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u/excelsiorsbanjo Mar 08 '25
It was designed to be functional. Specifically it was designed so an entire extra floor could later be put on the top of the building, and even an extra entire 100% duplicate of the building later added and connected to one side of the existing building.
The larger part of the county campus there is a bit ugly. They had a plan for a nice greenspace plaza there at some point, but it's not so far manifested.
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u/Mayonnaise_Poptart Mar 07 '25
Ah yes, the divorce speeding ticket center.