Spokane

Spokane is a city in eastern Washington, United States, on the falls of the Spokane River near the Idaho border. It takes its name from the Spokane tribe, a name usually translated as children of the sun.

James Glover, a merchant often called the father of Spokane, bought a sawmill at the falls in the 1870s and opened a store beside it. The Northern Pacific Railway arrived soon after, and the town of Spokane Falls grew as a center for the mines and wheat farms of the Inland Northwest. After a fire in the late 1880s the downtown was rebuilt in brick and stone, and the town took its shorter name a few years later. Sonora Smart Dodd held the first Father's Day in Spokane in 1910 in honor of her father, a widower who raised six children. Washington Water Power, now Avista, built dams on the falls to light the city.

Wheat and lentils from the farms of the Palouse to the south are traded and shipped through Spokane. Gonzaga University, founded by the Jesuits in the 1880s, is known for its basketball team, and Bing Crosby grew up near the campus.

In 1974 Spokane held a world's fair on Havermale Island, the first with the environment as its theme, and the grounds became Riverfront Park, with a carousel carved by Charles Looff and a gondola over the falls. The Davenport Hotel, opened in the 1910s by Louis Davenport, has lobbies in Spanish Renaissance style. Manito Park on the South Hill keeps a Japanese garden, a conservatory and a rose garden.