57 Fun Facts About Spokane

Spokane is the second-most populous city in which US state?

Washington's second-largest city incorporated in 1881, the year the Northern Pacific Railroad arrived; the trains set off a boom that carried it past 100,000 people by 1910.

Spokane is known as the birthplace of which national holiday?

Father's Day began in Spokane on 19 June 1910, organised by a local woman who had heard a Mother's Day sermon at the Central Methodist Episcopal Church; it became a permanent national holiday in 1972.

Which Spokane woman persuaded the city's ministers to hold the first celebration of a now-national holiday in June 1910?

Sonora Smart Dodd got the idea while listening to a Mother's Day sermon in 1909, and lived to see her holiday made permanent in 1972, when she was 90.

What is Spokane's long-standing unofficial nickname, taken from a flowering shrub?

Lilac City stuck because the shrub, introduced in the early 1900s, flourished in the local climate, and garden clubs then built a spring Lilac Festival around the blooms.

Which steel animal sculpture, made for Expo '74, vacuums up litter that visitors feed it in downtown Spokane?

A goat: Sister Paula Turnbull, Spokane's 'welding nun', built the Garbage Goat with a vacuum in its mouth, and dairy goat farmers protested that it made goats look like trash eaters.

The name of the Spokane tribe is most often translated from Salish as what?

Children of the sun is the reading the city itself uses, though the origin is disputed: 'muddy people' is another proposal, and some scholars call all of them folk etymologies.

Spokane House, the trading post founded in 1810 where two rivers meet, was built by which fur-trading company?

The North West Company built Spokane House; the Hudson's Bay Company inherited it in the 1821 merger and closed it a few years later, partly because the beaver were trapped out and supplies had to come overland by packhorse.

Which fur-trade explorer and mapmaker sent the men who built Spokane House, the 1810 trading post on the Spokane River?

David Thompson sent Jaco Finlay and Finan McDonald to build the post in 1810, and they picked a fork in the river where local tribes already gathered each year to catch and dry salmon.

Under what name was Spokane officially incorporated as a city in 1881?

Spokane Falls was the city's name for its first decade; voters dropped 'Falls' in 1891, at the same election that approved a new charter for a town grown to about 20,000.

After the Great Fire of 1889 levelled downtown Spokane, where did shops, saloons and offices quickly reopen?

In tents: a canvas 'tent city' housed shops, saloons, insurance adjusters and even a newspaper within days of the fire, which had burned more than 30 blocks, while owners rebuilt in brick and stone.

Why could firefighters do little to stop Spokane's Great Fire of 1889 when it broke out?

Weak water pressure left the hoses useless; the waterworks superintendent, away that evening, took the blame and resigned, though the fault was later traced elsewhere.

Which architect, trained as an illustrator, designed Spokane's Davenport Hotel and many downtown buildings after the 1889 fire?

Kirtland Cutter came to Spokane in 1886 and worked as a teller in his uncle's bank while starting out as an architect, so he was on the spot when the Great Fire left a whole downtown to rebuild.

Spokane's Davenport Hotel opened in 1914 with novel technology for its day, including which feature?

Air cooling and chilled water were 1914 novelties at Louis Davenport's hotel, which closed in 1985 and stood under threat of demolition until a local developer restored it and reopened it in 2002.

Which US president came to Spokane in May 1974 to open its world's fair, Expo '74?

Richard Nixon declared the fair open before a crowd of 85,000 while the Watergate scandal closed in on him; three months later he resigned.

Which theme did Spokane choose for Expo '74, its 1974 world's fair?

The environment was the theme, and the fair practised it on its own site: Spokane tore out the rail lines and trestles that had covered its downtown riverbanks to make room for the pavilions.

After Expo '74 closed, its fairgrounds became which 100-acre park in downtown Spokane?

Riverfront Park kept one relic of the rail depots razed for the fair: the Great Northern clocktower, which had carried a sign counting down the days to opening.

Gonzaga University was founded in 1887 by which religious order?

The Jesuits opened Gonzaga under Father Joseph Cataldo, a missionary who wanted a Catholic college partly because he feared the region's new Protestant schools would draw away his Native students.

Whitworth University, founded in 1890 and moved to Spokane in 1914, is affiliated with which church?

Presbyterian minister George Whitworth started the school near Puget Sound; it moved east in 1914 after developer Jay P. Graves donated a campus, reckoning a college would lift the value of the lots he was selling nearby.

Gonzaga reached its first Final Four in 2017, then lost the national title game to which team?

North Carolina won 71-65 in Gonzaga's first title game; the Zags came back unbeaten in 2021 and lost the final again, that time to Baylor.

Who was promoted from assistant to Gonzaga Bulldogs head coach in 1999?

Mark Few had spent a decade on the Gonzaga staff when Dan Monson left for Minnesota months after the 1999 Elite Eight run; Few took over and had the Zags back in the NCAA tournament in his first season.

Which Hall of Fame point guard was born and raised in Spokane and stayed home to play college basketball for Gonzaga?

John Stockton was only the 16th pick of the 1984 NBA draft, yet he retired 19 seasons later with a league-record 15,806 assists.

Which Chicago Cubs great was born in Spokane and was a three-sport star at the city's North Central High School?

Ryne Sandberg, named for Yankees pitcher Ryne Duren, was a high school All-America quarterback who had signed to play college football before the Phillies drafted him and he chose baseball instead.

Which Spokane-born congressman served as Speaker of the US House from 1989 to 1995?

Tom Foley held his Spokane seat for 30 years, then lost it in 1994 after joining a lawsuit against term limits his state's voters had approved; no sitting Speaker had been voted out since 1862.

Which legendary crooner was raised in Spokane and has a downtown theater named in his honour?

Bing Crosby came to Spokane as a small boy in 1906 and sang at the downtown Clemmer Theatre as a young unknown; in 2006 the same house was renamed the Bing Crosby Theater.

Which member of the voice cast of Pixar's The Incredibles was born in Spokane?

Craig T. Nelson, the voice of Mr. Incredible, began in stand-up comedy alongside future director Barry Levinson and struggled through the 1970s before the sitcom Coach made him a star.

Which artist on the Grammy-winning 2012 album The Heist was born in Spokane?

Ryan Lewis met Macklemore through Myspace in 2006 and produced The Heist; the pair released it themselves, with no record label behind them, and still won four Grammys in 2014.

Spokane International Airport's code GEG is a legacy of which former name?

Geiger Field got its name in 1941, when the War Department bought the county's Sunset Field and renamed it for Major Harold Geiger, an Army aviation pioneer killed in a 1927 crash.

Which US Air Force unit, the area's largest employer, is based at Fairchild Air Force Base near Spokane?

The 92d Air Refueling Wing flies KC-135 Stratotankers from Fairchild Air Force Base; the base opened in 1942 as an Army air depot, took General Muir Fairchild's name in 1951 and has been Spokane County's largest employer.

Which mountain range's rain shadow leaves Spokane with less than half of Seattle's yearly precipitation?

The Cascades catch storms blowing in from the Pacific and wring most of the moisture out on their western slopes, leaving the land to their east, Spokane included, in a dry rain shadow.

Which tree is the official tree of the City of Spokane?

Ponderosa pine grows all over Spokane, and science first met it here: botanist David Douglas collected the earliest recorded specimens near the present-day city in 1826.

What nickname do runners give the dreaded climb late in Spokane's Bloomsday road race?

Doomsday Hill joined the 12-kilometre course in 1980, three years after local runner Don Kardong started a race that drew just over a thousand runners and grew to more than 60,000 entrants by 1996.

What is the nickname of Spokane's Western Hockey League team?

The Chiefs arrived in 1985, when the Kelowna Wings left Canada and moved south to Spokane; their regional rivals are the Tri-City Americans.

Which trophy did Spokane's junior hockey team win in 1991 and again in 2008?

The Memorial Cup, junior hockey's biggest prize, did not survive the 2008 party intact: as Spokane's captain handed it to a teammate on the ice, the cup snapped off its base and fell.

The Spokane Indians baseball team has been a farm club of which MLB franchise since 2021?

The Colorado Rockies took over in 2021, when baseball's minor-league shake-up lifted the Northwest League from a short summer season to High-A and ended Spokane's 18 years with the Texas Rangers.

What is the name of Spokane's men's professional soccer club in USL League One?

Velocity FC kicked off in 2024 as an expansion side and, as the seventh of eight seeds, went all the way to the league's title match in its first season before losing to Union Omaha.

Which Japanese city, the namesake of the Japanese garden in Manito Park, became Spokane's first sister city in 1961?

Nishinomiya signed the pact in Spokane in September 1961; the Manito Park garden carries its name alongside that of Ed Tsutakawa, the Spokane man credited with building the tie.

At 288 feet, which is the tallest building in Spokane?

Bank of America Financial Center went up in 1981 for Seattle's Seafirst bank; BankAmerica bought Seafirst in 1983, yet the Spokane tower kept its builder's name until 1999.

Which carver created the hand-carved 1909 carousel that operates in downtown Spokane?

Charles I. D. Looff built it as a wedding gift for his daughter Emma, and it first turned at Natatorium Park; the carousel outlived that amusement park, which closed in 1968, and moved downtown in 1975.

Which famous design firm was hired in 1907 to plan Spokane's park system?

The Olmsted Brothers, the firm run by the sons of Central Park's designer, walked the city in 1907 and 1908, and their plan set off a burst of land buying that gave Spokane much of its park land before World War I.

Spokane became the county seat in 1886 by taking the title from which town?

Cheney's partisans, sure that a disputed 1880 vote had gone their way, carried off the county records by night in 1881 and kept the seat until Spokane won it back at the polls in 1886.

Who was elected Spokane's first African-American mayor in 1981?

James Everett Chase, a city councilman since 1975, won the 1981 race for mayor by a landslide in a city where Black residents were a tiny minority, and served a single term.

Which maker of smart meters and utility software is headquartered in Liberty Lake, east of Spokane?

Itron began in 1977 in a garage at Hauser Lake, Idaho, where a few engineers set out to replace the meter reader's pencil and paper with a portable computer.

Which IWW orator delayed her arrest in Spokane's 1909 free-speech fight by chaining herself to a lamppost?

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was one of some 500 Wobblies jailed for speaking on Spokane's streets; she accused the police of running a brothel in the women's jail, and the fight ended with the city revoking its ban.

The Great Northern Railway built its locomotive shops in 1892 in a new town that became which Spokane neighbourhood?

Hillyard is literally 'Hill's yard': railway magnate James J. Hill put his works just outside the city limits to escape Spokane's taxes, and the town stayed independent until it was annexed in 1924.

The Spokane River rises from which body of water in northern Idaho?

Lake Coeur d'Alene is where the river begins; from there it runs 111 miles through downtown Spokane, and a string of dams along the way has cut off the salmon that once swam up it.

The Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture in Spokane is an affiliate of which institution?

The Smithsonian counts the museum, known as the MAC, among its affiliates; until 1960 its exhibits filled the mansion next door, given to the historical society by the owners' daughter as a memorial after her mother died in 1924.

Which six-day food and free-music festival filled Spokane's old World's Fair grounds for over four decades, ending in 2025?

Pig Out in the Park ended by its organiser's decision: Bill Burke announced in March 2026, after talks with his board and sponsors, that he would not stage the festival again.

The Martin Woldson Theater at the Fox, restored to its 1931 Art Deco glory, is home to which ensemble?

The Spokane Symphony bought the 1931 Fox Theater in 2000 to save it from demolition and reopened it in 2007 as the Martin Woldson Theater at the Fox, named for a donor's father, after restoring its Art Deco interior.

What was crossing Spokane's Division Street Bridge when a span collapsed into the river in 1915, killing five people?

Two trolleys were on the bridge when it gave way one December morning; one dropped into the river with its passengers, the worst accident in the history of the city's streetcar system.

Which large 3-on-3 basketball tournament takes over Spokane's streets each June?

Hoopfest began in 1990, in part to raise money for Special Olympics, which is still its main beneficiary, and grew into the largest 3-on-3 tournament in the world.

The pavilions on Spokane's 1911 Monroe Street Bridge are decorated with the skulls of which animal?

Bison skulls were part of the ornament that dressed up the 1911 span, then the largest concrete arch in the United States; after ninety years of traffic it was closed in 2003, rebuilt and reopened in 2005.

Spokane draws its drinking water from a vast gravel aquifer laid down by which Ice Age events?

The Missoula Floods, released from glacial Lake Missoula, left the deep beds of gravel and boulders that hold the region's aquifer, which won special federal protection in 1978 because so many people drink from it.

Which neighbour of Spokane became one of the ten largest cities in the state overnight when it incorporated in 2003?

Spokane Valley voted in 2002 to become a city after several earlier incorporation drives had failed; when the change took effect in March 2003, the suburb at once ranked ninth in the state.

The Spokane River is a tributary of which larger river?

The Columbia takes in the Spokane River at Lake Roosevelt after a 111-mile run; an Army post set up at the junction in 1880 was named Fort Spokane in 1882, and its garrison left when the Spanish-American War began in 1898.

Which neighbourhood just west of downtown Spokane is known for the mansions built by the city's early elite?

Browne's Addition filled with the mansions of mining and railroad tycoons; many were later carved into apartments, and since 1976 most of the neighbourhood has been a National Register historic district.

Which city did Spokane eclipse as the commercial centre of the Inland Empire by 1910?

Walla Walla lost out because the railroads favoured its rival: the Northern Pacific reached Spokane in 1881, a mining boom in the nearby Idaho mountains followed, and by 1910 Spokane had passed 100,000 people.

Mount Spokane, the highest peak in Spokane County, is the centrepiece of the largest what in its home state?

State park: Mount Spokane State Park grew from the summit land of Francis Cook, who began building a toll road up the mountain in 1909, 18 years before the state took it over.