City-County of Spokane Historic Preservation

Logan Historic Neighborhood Project

Updates

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Historic Significance of Mission Avenue National Historic District

Within Logan Neighborhood is the Mission Avenue National Historic District, with boundaries from approximately N. Lidgerwood (300 block of E. Mission) to approximately N. Cincinnati (800 block of E. Mission).

The Mission Avenue Historic District is characterized by a cohesive group of late 19^th and early 20^th century houses that face the boulevard and the tree line 329 E. Mission d median strip which forms a natural canopy in the center of the street. Mission Avenue National Historic District is significant because the architectural character of the district reflects the diversity of residential architecture in the late 19^th and early 20^th century and is distinguished by locally significant examples of the Queen Anne, Four Square, Craftsman, and Colonial Revival styles. Collectively, buildings in the district possess good integrity and form one of the largest and best preserved groups of housing from that period north of the Spokane River.

The Mission Avenue National Historic District is a seven block long residential neighborhood situated on a broad boulevard, the city’s oldest landscaped boulevard, on the north side of the Spokane River one mile northeast of Spokane’s central business district. Platted and first developed between 1884 and 1890 by Sylvester and Ida Heath and the Jesuits of nearby Gonzaga College, the district was the focal point of one of Spokane’s earliest residential suburbs. National district designation is an honorary designation. It does not regulate the appearance of historic properties.

To learn more about owning a property in a National Register Historic District, click here.

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What Property Owners Can Do to Protect Their Homes

Several homeowners within the Mission Avenue National Historic District hav 630 E. Mission e expressed an interest in protecting the historic character of their own homes from future alterations. Property owners who want to protect their homes may be interested in the city’s voluntary program of regulations on historic homes, the Spokane Register of Historic Places. For more information, click here.

For information on neighborhood preservation, click here.

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For a map of the Mission Avenue Historic District, click here.

~Check back often for updates on the project~

Logan Neighborhood Updates

Teresa Brum, City-County Historic Preservation Director, will attend a Logan Neighborhood meeting on March 20 to talk to the neighborhood about the historic preservation process and explain how property owners can nominate their homes to the Spokane Register. The city is starting to work with Gonzaga University to create an intern position to help homeowners who are interested in listing their homes on the Spokane Register.

On March 20, 2007, Historic Preservation Director Teresa Brum, Preservation Specialist Aimee E. Flinn and Gonzaga intern Joe Druet presented information at Logan Neighborhood meeting on the Logan Historic Neighborhood Project, an innovative program for eligible properties located within the Mission Avenue National Historic District. Following a reconnaissance level survey of the existing homes in the Mission Avenue District, thirty-one properties were determined to be eligible for listing on the Spokane Register of Historic Places. The project will allow property owners of those thirty-one properties to have their homes listed without any work. City staff in coordination with Joe will complete the Spokane Register application for the homeowner. The end date for homeowners to accept the offer is May 30, 2007. Every eligible property owner will be contacted via mail to let them know about the program.

To view the handout presented at the meeting, click here.

To learn more about the Spokane Register of Historic Places, click here.

Currently six individual Spokane Register nominations are being drafted for those property owners who have expressed an interest in the program. Once the nominations have been completed, each homeowner will review the draft and make any recommendations. The nominations will then be reviewed by Spokane Historic Landmarks Commission.

Seven property owners agreed to have their homes on East Mission Avenue, in the Mission Avenue Historic District, listed on the Spokane Register of Historic Places. Nominations for those homes have been drafted and will be forwarded to individual property owners for review. All seven register nominations will be reviewed by the Landmarks Commission in September. An eighth nomination was completed by a homeowner and will be reviewed at the July meeting.

Two more properties have been added as part of the project. One of the homes, 402 E. Mission, was designed, constructed, and occupied by prominent local architect Julius Zittel who designed numerous campus buildings at Gonzaga and the Heath Branch of the Carnegie Library also located on Mission Avenue. All register nominations will be reviewed at the September Landmarks Commission meeting.

Three nominations were reviewed at the September Landmarks Meeting. All three nominations will be forwarded to City Council for final approval: Zeph Lane House, 630 E. Mission, Chester Gibbs House, 308 E. Mission, and James Codd House, 524 E. Mission.

NEW! One more nomination was reviewed at the October Landmarks meeting, the George & Clara Clark House. The nomination will now be forwarded on for City Council review. The Lane House and Gibbs House both were officially listed on the Spokane Register in October. The fifth and final nomination, the Mele House, will be reviewed by the Landmarks Commission at the November meeting.

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~ For more information, contact Karen Marshall at (509) 625-6985, or via email at kmarshall@spokanecity.org ~