Spokane Electric: 1889-Spokane

This is a year of struggles for Edison Electric Illuminating who is unable to secure needed financing from east coast investors. Meanwhile on March 13, ten stockholders authorizing $1 million form the Washington Water Power Company (WWP). The authorized capital is increased one-and-a -half times with bonds to $500 million.

The main stockholders:

1. Frank R. Moore, President - past pres. Spokane Falls Electric Light & Power

2. J. D. Sherwood - xx, Spokane Falls Electric Light & Power

3. Herbert Bolster - ??

4. W. S. Norman - ??

5. Cyrus S. Burns - ??

WWP President, Frank “Rockwood” Moore is past president of the First National Bank (with the city's founder, James Glover), partner in the Lucky Chance Mine, organizer of 2 electric street cars, and owns vast properties south of the downtown area. WWP acquires a large flourmill on the north side of the river.

The first resident engineer was Henry Herrick. The first assignment of the newly formed company was the planning and building of the Monroe Street Power Station.

FIRE! On August 4 fire destroys 32 blocks of the business district.

Spokane the day after the fire, Aug. 5, 1889.

With a population of 20,000 and a scorched business district, Spokane begins rebuilding immediately. Electric poles and wires are toast but the Monroe Street Power Station is saved. With a huge demand for electric power, the local power companies work to their maximum capacity but barely keep up.

News of the fire spread. Te Aroha News in New Zealand report the loss in the following month.

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How the Incandescent Light Bulb and Electricity Transform a Frontier Town

In the late 19^th century, electrification was transforming American cities. Electricity, along with railroads and the telegraph, were reshaping the American landscape. Contemporaries saw these as emblematic of intellectualism, nationalism, and civilization. These were the symbols of American progress, destiny made manifest. John Gast popularized attitudes in his 1863 painting American Progress, where Columbia advances west, flanked by the railroad, a coil of telegraph wire over one arm, and bringing light from the east behind her.

About Spokane, Washington

The Spokane River, and its spectacular series of falls, sustained Native American tribes for centuries. In the 1810s, the Spokane River served an important post for fur traders, both British and American. White settlers were attracted to the river and began settling around the falls of the Spokane River in the 1870s. James Glover, often labeled as the city’s founding father, filed the first town plat in 1878 and enthusiastically promoted the city and his business interests for forty years.

The Washington Territorial legislature granted a city charter and Spokane Falls was official, incorporated in 1881. The 1880s were a boom period for the Pacific Northwest. Three Washington Territory towns competed for prominence. In 1880, Walla Walla, population 3,588, was the largest city barely beating out Seattle’s population of 3,533. Coming in third was Spokane with a population of 350 but that was followed by tremendous growth. Mining booms in nearby northern Idaho in 1883 and north into Canada, farmers settling the fertile Palouse to the south, and abundant forest for lumbering, made Spokane Falls the major center of a new region – the inland Northwest. As railroads looked to connect Chicago and Minneapolis to Seattle, Spokane became a hub for 3 major railroads.

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quote about Spokanes from some expert xx
-Miss So-and-So...