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The Balkan Hotel is historically significant as a Single Room Occupancy Hotel,
a particularly popular type of housing during the economic boom that fueled Spokane’s explosive population growth in the first decade of the century.
Single Room Occupancy Hotels like the Balkan, built in 1909, provided
working class housing for the large numbers of itinerant laborers that
flocked to Spokane to take advantage of expanding opportunities
associated with the city's emergence as a regional transportation
hub. The east downtown neighborhood where this SRO was located
became an enclave for immigrants arriving in Spokane
from the the Balkan Peninsula, as the hotel's name suggests.
Together with the Balkan Servian Benevolent Society,
located two blocks west, the Balkan Hotel served as a focal point for
the neighborhood's Balkan immigrant community.
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