LaCrosse Community Pride is composed of individuals who are passionate about the revitalizing the town of LaCrosse and creating a community that can flourish even in the toughest times.
Region: East
Mailing Address:
P.O. Box 321
LaCrosse, WA 99143
Physical Address:
102 East 2nd Street
LaCrosse, WA 99143
Status: Saved!
Year Listed: 1992
Location: Pullman, Whitman County
Early in 1992, the Trust began offering assistance toward saving the T.A. Leonard barn built near Pullman in 1917. Barn preservation was a growing concern statewide, and this was one of Washington’s few remaining round barns – and a unique design within that small typology. With their self-supporting roofs, smaller amount of wall space, and circular feeding and cleaning methods, round barns were briefly believed to be more efficient and modern, and less expensive to build. The Leonard Barn, documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey in 1985 (photos and drawings), is unusual for its exceptionally high roof, wooden rather than concrete base, and large number of windows.
Placement on the Trust’s Most Endangered list in 1992 brought additional local as well as statewide attention to the Leonard barn. The owner wanted to re-roof it and make it more structurally secure but lacked funds. Board members Kit Garrett from Spokane and Don Heil from Pullman, along with executive director Becky Day, met with the owner to tour the barn and offer help publicizing its challenges. The next year, the Trust proudly granted $5000 won through the LU Cookie Company’s “Restore What’s Gone Before” campaign to re-create the missing cupola, the first step in sealing out the elements.
Still, it took many years to assemble funding for fully rehabilitating the barn, which remained on the Most Endangered list until 1996. The major renovation completed in 2001 included repairs to the beams, windows, and floors, shingle replacement, and fresh paint. The Leonard Barn is recognized in the Oxford World Vernacular Encyclopedia.
Status: Most Endangered Places
Year Listed: 2020
Location: Palouse, Whitman County
Originally built in 1888 as the railroad-boom Palouse Hotel, St. Elmo’s is a major component and visual anchor of the Palouse Main Street Historic District which was established in 1986. With its mansard roof and metal shingles, it is one of the few existing buildings in rural eastern Washington in the Second Empire style. The current owners purchased the building in 2018 with plans to rehabilitate, but after discovering more structural issues than anticipated, decided to demolish. Luckily, community members have convinced the owners to put the building back on the market to give someone else the chance to save one of Palouse’s most iconic buildings. A core group has formed the Friends of St. Elmo’s, which nominated it to our Most Endangered Places list and is working to raise awareness of the need to save St. Elmo’s.
Status: Most Endangered Places
Year Listed: 2020
Location: Spokane, Spokane County
The Chancery holds a position of prominence in downtown Spokane as an anchor structure in the National Register Riverside Historic District on what has been described as “Spokane’s most beautiful street.” Originally built in 1910 as the Western Union Life Insurance Building, the property was designed by famed architect Kirtland Cutter, also responsible for other noted Spokane buildings such as the Davenport Hotel, Patsy Clark Mansion, Spokane Club, and the Monroe Street Bridge—not to mention the Washington Trust’s very own Stimson-Green in Seattle. In 1924, the building underwent a significant expansion and redesign by another renowned Washington architect, Gustav Pehrson.
The building was home to a number of life insurance companies until 1966, when it was sold to Spokane’s Roman Catholic Diocese, serving as the diocese headquarters for over 40 years. In 2006, the Diocese sold the property, remaining as tenants in the building until last year. The current owner, which controls the entire block on which the Chancery Building is located, is presently evaluating redevelopment scenarios. No determination has been made regarding the future of the Chancery Building, but Spokane Preservation Advocates (SPA), our local advocacy partner, are hopeful the building can serve as a prominent feature of the redeveloped block, keeping the street one of the Spokane’s most beautiful. The Washington Trust is looking forward to collaborating with SPA, the owners, and other friends in Spokane to help work toward a positive preservation outcome.
Year Listed: 2020
Colville Together is a nonprofit organization focused on the preserving and planning of downtown Colville. We are a Main Street Community through the Washington State Main Street Program. The focus of our organization is the physical environment of downtown Colville. Primarily we are focused on the buildings, as well as the streets, the sidewalks, and the trees. Our mission statement and purpose is: “Partnering to enrich our community through planning and preserving Historic Downtown Colville, while cultivating our local economy.”
We strongly believe that a comfortable downtown environment encourages new businesses, community use, and attracts tourists. Colville is blessed with an amazing downtown, which holds a fantastic variety of building styles and types. One of our principal goals is to work with building owners to restore and revitalize the buildings of our downtown. Downtown Colville is a unique and beautiful place—let’s maintain the excellent elements and polish some of the buildings that are neglected and deteriorating into the jewels of our community.
Region: East
Rosemary Shaw, Executive Director
509-550-8420
Status: Most Endangered Places
Year Listed: 2018
Location: Benton County
Location: Manhattan Project National Historical Park
After immigrating to the United States from Germany in 1926, Paul and Mary Bruggemann purchased a large ranch along the Columbia River in 1937. The Bruggemanns became one of the most successful farming families in the region but were evicted by the US Government in 1943 to make way for plutonium production. The copious supply of water from the Columbia combined with cheap, reliable power made the area an ideal location for the development of the Manhattan Project.
The pre-Manhattan Project history of the Hanford Reach area was nearly erased over the ensuing decades, but with the recent establishment of the Hanford Unit of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park, a new interest in uncovering the layered history of the site has developed. Only four structures remain from the pre-Manhattan era: Hanford High School, the White Bluffs Bank, the Allard Pumphouse, and the only privately built structure remaining: the Bruggemann cook house.
The Bruggemann site was once a substantial ranch with multiple structures and around 2000 acres of orchards. Today, only the cook house remains. The building is constructed of river cobble and is the last surviving example of this once common architectural technique in the area. The cook house is currently unsheltered from the elements with no clear plan for preservation, and advocates are seeking to bring more attention to the importance of preserving the little physical history that remains. The nearby White Bluffs Bank was recently restored, and advocates would like to see the cook house also restored and used to interpret the pre-Manhattan Project history.
Because of its proximity to the Vernita Bridge, the northernmost access point to park, a restored cook house could logically serve as an entry point and interpretative space that could communicate the significance of the pre-Manhattan Project history to park visitors.
Year Listed: 2018
Indow is a cleantech company in Portland, Oregon dedicated to making the built environment more energy efficient while preserving historic windows. It makes custom interior window inserts for residential and commercial spaces that help original old-growth wood windows perform like new double-panes without altering the exterior of the buildings. This is one reason preservationists turn to them: they do not interfere with historic district requirements that windows retain their original appearance and character.
Historic properties across the United States have them from a 1756 house in New Hampshire with all its original windows to Case Study House #26 in the Bay Area, an iconic American home commissioned by Art & Architecture magazine, to a county government building in Arlington, Virginia that was converted into a homeless shelter.
When buildings settle, the windows settle with them, making them out of square. Indow acrylic window inserts are handmade for each window opening using precise laser measurements. Each insert is edged in silicone compression tube and simply presses into place without a damaging track or magnetic system. The inserts not only make buildings more energy efficient, they reduce the number of irreplaceable old growth wood windows thrown into landfills during window replacement.
Categories: Energy Efficiency, Suppliers – Windows & Doors
Region: Central, Statewide, West, East
Year Listed: 2018
Since 1980, Archaeological and Historical Services (AHS) has provided cultural resources management services for all aspects of project planning and development in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. AHS is a grant/contract research program at Eastern Washington University that specializes in aiding private, city, county, state, and federal clients in meeting local, state, and federal compliance requirements. AHS services are designed to provide compliance with cultural resources regulatory processes, including the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA, Section 106 Compliance), Executive Order 05-05, and State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA). AHS employs a full-time professional staff with extensive CRM and research experience in the Pacific Northwest. The professional staff meet Secretary of Interior Standards (36 CFR Part 61) in history, archaeology, and architectural history. AHS has prepared more than 2,700 cultural resources reports since 1980 which routinely include:
• Survey reports (Phase I)
• Archaeological testing and evaluation plans (Phase II)
• Data recovery reports (Phase III)
• Construction monitoring reports
• Historic building assessments
• Historic and Ethnographic Overviews
• Cultural resources management plans
• Memoranda of agreement (MOAs) and programmatic agreement (PA)
• NRHP nominations and determination of eligibility
• HABS/HAER/HALS documentation
• Inadvertent discovery plans
• Environmental Assessment (EA) and Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)
Categories: Archaeology
Region: Statewide, West, East
Status: Saved!
Year Listed: 2004
Location: Columbia County
The Dantzsher Building—commonly known as the Dorsey Building—was built around 1895 and is the cornerstone of Dayton’s Downtown Historic District, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Over the past 100 years and more, the building has housed a tailor and millinery shop, drug store, lounge, and lodging on the second floor. The tailor shop became the first local telephone company office in Dayton.
Status: Lost
Year Listed: 2005
Location: Walla Walla County
Constructed in 1865, the Preston-Shaffer Milling Company or Wait’s Mill operated continuously for 92 years until it closed in 1957. The historic town of Waitsburg owes its existence to the mill, one of the oldest operating mills west of the Mississippi at the time of its closure.
Status: Still Standing
Year Listed: 2005
Location: Walla Walla County
The Jonathan M.Wainwright Memorial VA Medical Center (VAMC) is located on the grounds of what was once Fort Walla Walla, one of the oldest military posts established in the Pacific Northwest (1856-58). In 1921-22, the facility was converted for use as a hospital and came under the jurisdiction of what is now the U.S.Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Constructed between 1858 and 1906, the remaining historic buildings from the military era include the officers’ quarters, stable, and infantry barracks—among the oldest structures in the state. Additional buildings constructed in the 1920s and ‘30s for hospital use remain today.
Status: Still Standing
Year Listed: 2007
Location: Pend Oreille County
A donation of 80 acres at Diamond Lake to the Spokane Council of the Boy Scouts of America by publisher William Cowles lead to the establishment of Camp Cowles in 1920. Three years later, with funding from Spokane mining magnate John A. Finch, a lodge serving as a dining hall and camp headquarters was constructed. Spokane architect Julius Zittel drew up the plans, employing a rustic design appropriate to the lodge’s role as a center for Scouting activities. Although the building has witnessed some alterations over the years, the original form and much of the interior remains intact and the lodge stands as the oldest known architect-designed Boy Scout Lodge west of the Mississippi.
Status: Lost
Year Listed: 2003
Location: Spokane County
The Rookery (1933), Mohawk (1915), and Merton (1890) buildings sat on one block in the heart of downtown Spokane. The Merton, former home of the Spokane Spokesman newspaper, was part of the rebuilding effort following the Great Fire of 1889. The terra cotta-ornamented Mohawk housed Dodson’s Jewelry, a longtime Spokane merchant still extant in another location. The Rookery served as Spokane’s premier example of Art Deco terra cotta artistry. These properties were mostly vacant and were demolished in 2004.
Status: Lost
Year Listed: 2003
Location: Ritzville, Adams County
The original Ritzville High School was constructed in 1910. In 1927, the old structure was incorporated under a new facade and two wings were added on either side. Although listed on the local and national registers, in 1982 the building was condemned when a new high school was built; it remained vacant until 1992 when it was gutted to create an assisted living facility. That project was never completed, leaving an eyesore with a leaking roof, an exposed, accessible interior, and poorly maintained grounds which constituted a potential fire hazard. The building was demolished in August 2013.
Status: Saved!
Year Listed: 2003
Location: Spokane County
The Five Mile Schoolhouse, formerly known as the Sky Prairie Schoolhouse, was built in 1937 by the federal Works Progress Administration. It’s a classic two-room, two-story brick schoolhouse, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2004. Closed after 1969, it was used as a storage facility by the Mead School District. The property was neglected, with windows boarded. The school is now owned by the State of Washington. Five Mile Schoolhouse is a community gathering place and a potential space for all types of art, educational, recreational, and public/neighborhood activities. The schoolhouse reopened in 2006 after the building was remodeled. It is now home to the Mead Education Partnership Program, an alternative school that combines home schooling with time in the classroom.
Status: Still Standing
Year Listed: 2009
Location: Columbia County
Despite its storied history and role in Dayton’s development, deferred maintenance has taken its toll on the building. The second floor has been vacant since the 1950s and, in part because of a partial roof collapse in December of 2008, the commercial space on the ground floor is now vacant as well. Failure to address the needed repairs and continued exposure to the elements could potentially result in a case of demolition by neglect. At present, the Day Block is neither for sale nor for rent.
Status: Most Endangered Places, In the works!
Year Listed: 2012
Location: Spokane County
Location: Spokane, Spokane County
Returning to the Endangered List for a second time is Spokane’s Jensen-Byrd Building, a visible downtown icon representing the significance of Spokane’s early twentieth century prosperity. At 200,000 square feet and six stories in height, the formidable brick structure stands as the county’s second largest historic warehouse and one of the largest historic buildings in downtown Spokane. Located on the Riverpoint Campus, the base for Washington State University’s operations in Spokane, the building initially faced uncertainty in 2006 as the university prepared to more fully develop the site. Fearing demolition, locally-based Spokane Preservation Advocates (SPA) sought to raise awareness by nominating the Jensen-Byrd Building to that year’s Most Endangered List. Following the inclusion of the structure in the 2006 List, advocates worked with WSU on scenarios designed to retain the Jensen-Byrd Building in the overall redevelopment scheme. After the failure of several redevelopment projects that included an option for rehabilitation, in the fall of 2011 WSU sold the building to Campus Advantage, a Texas-based developer with plans to demolish the Jensen-Byrd Building and construct a new dormitory for the WSU-Spokane campus. This decision was made despite a comparable offer from a local Spokane developer who promised to adaptively re-use the Jensen-Byrd as a dormitory. This action prompted SPA to once again seek Most Endangered status for the structure. While the Jensen-Byrd Building has remained on the Washington Trust’s Watch List since 2006, the organization strongly felt the need to highlight the building once again given the current course of demolition. Recent reports indicate demolition will be delayed until 2013, but overall plans for the site remain unchanged.
Status: Saved!
Year Listed: 2013
Location: Chewelah, Stevens County
In the 1860s, Major John Sims, Acting Indian Agent, oversaw the construction of a log cabin to serve as the Colville Indian Agency. The cabin maintained this role until 1885, when Agency operations were relocated to Fort Spokane. Sims and his wife, Lucy, continued to live in the cabin, staying on to homestead the site. In 1902, Dr. S.P. McPherson purchased the cabin as his personal residence. With the addition of a granary and other rooms, the cabin continued to meet the needs of the family, with the last descendants remaining until 2010. Concerned about the long-term stewardship of the cabin, the family donated the property to the Stevens County Historical Society (SCHS). With the goal of using the cabin to interpret the Indian Agency period, the SCHS has worked to clean out the cabin and make needed repairs. The hopes for a quick solution were lost when work began and it became apparent that more than cosmetic changes were needed. The sill logs were so badly rotted that they would not have supported the cabin for very much further into the future. The roof, the floor, and the porch all had to be replaced, and the chinking between the logs also had to be removed and replaced. In addition, the fireplace, which was pulling the cabin down, would have to be removed, and the gap filled.
The SCHS was dedicated and continued to raise funds and build awareness for the site. With support from the Washington State Heritage Capital Projects Fund and the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the State of Washington, the cabin has undergone a complete rehabilitation and was declared “Saved!” in 2019.
Read more on page 8 of the Fall 2019 issue of This Place magazine.
Status: Lost
Year Listed: 2014
Location: Sprague, Lincoln County
Originally called Hoodooville, the town of Sprague began as a sheep camp in the 1870s. Officially incorporated in 1883, the town changed its name to Sprague, in honor of Civil War Union General John Wilson Sprague, an executive with Northern Pacific Railroad which had a presence in town. In 1895, a fire virtually erased downtown, prompting the construction of modern fireproof masonry buildings following the blaze. Yet, even fireproof buildings need upkeep, and decades of deferred maintenance have taken a toll. On September 6, 2013, the easternmost building on the main block of downtown collapsed, forcing city officials to close down the street and condemn the entire block of adjacent structures.
Via the Most Endangered list, the Washington Trust was invited to assist. The 2014 Most Endangered listing raised awareness and spurred assistance in the form of a consultant donating time to assess the viability of rehabilitating an historic hotel building. The amount of money needed to bring the building back was, however, staggering. Local recognition that rehabilitation of the remaining buildings offered significant economic opportunity remained high. However, no large investment was secured and the hotel was unfortunately demolished, leaving just a few remaining historic buildings downtown.
Read more from our “40 for 40” featured story from the Washington Trust’s 40th anniversary in 2016.
Status: Most Endangered Places
Year Listed: 2015
Location: Colfax, Whitman County
St. Ignatius opened in 1894 as Whitman County’s first hospital. The substantial brick building underwent alterations in both 1917 and 1928, which removed portions of the Victorian trappings and left the building with a more modern, symmetrical appearance. By 1964, the hospital board decided to relocate the hospital, leaving the existing building to serve as an assisted care facility. The last residents moved out of the facility in 2000, and since that time it has sat abandoned. Despite over a decade of neglect and exposure to the elements, the building retains solid structural bones. The building is presently for sale, but redevelopment will require a complete overhaul of the entire infrastructure and building systems. City officials are supportive and welcome the potential economic impact rehabilitation could have for the area. Despite some inquiries, the owner has yet to receive any viable offers for rehabilitation.
