US 395, Part 26: Interstate 90 in Lincoln County and Western Spokane County (I-90/US 395, I-90/US 2/US 395)

Now for our second fork, which rewinds back to Ritzville (Part 25), but instead takes Interstate 90, which is the alignment on which US 395 is carried today. This routing is very poorly signed, and except for a sign out of Ritzville and the deviation signage in Spokane, there is nothing between the two cities to say US 395 even runs there.

Spokane (say spoh-KAN, not SPOH-kayn) county is named for the Spokan (or Spokane) Indian tribe (meaning 'children of the sun'), the original settlers of the region who continue to live in the county today in reservation lands near the Idaho border. Its population numbers 417,939 [2000], of which 195,629 [2000] live in Spokane, the county seat (and over 500,000 in the total metropolitan area). Its history as a county is quite irregular, considering that it ceased to exist in a legislative sense for almost 15 years after its original creation due to temporary merger in 1864 with Stevens county to the north (although first declared in 1858, Spokane county would not be formally organized until two years later). Spokane county went through several seats before settling on Spokane itself, first Pinkney City at its birth, then Colville with Stevens county from 1864 to 1879, then Cheney until 1886, and finally Spokane Falls, which was renamed to Spokane in 1891.

Spokane is an important trading point and distribution centre for much of eastern Washington state and western Idaho. It sits at the foot of a valley along the Spokane River, an important tributary of the Columbia River that runs spectacularly through the north end of town, and near its confluence with the Hangman River which crosses the town on the southwest side. The falls in Spokane have been known since antiquity and were a common fishing site for the local Indians due to the rich salmon population; we will visit them in Part 28. As settlers pushed west, the river valley similarly attracted additional occupants for its ample fishing and hospitable land tracts. By 1881, the Northern Pacific Railway reached the site, and the floodgates opened to many more looking to stake their claim. The city was founded the same year. Although damming of the Spokane River would effectively flatten the salmon industry in 1908, the area remains a significant focus for farming, horticulture and agriculture, and logging; it is the major Washington-side hub of the Palouse region.

Spokane is also of personal interest to me, as some nut computer geek I call my best friend has in-laws in the region. Irritatingly, he got it on the first try when I called him leaving town and asked him to guess where I was. ("Oh, you'll never guess where I am! ... Oh, crud, you did.") Although Spokane has a very hard-bitten aspect to it on first blush, once you start playing around and driving through it, it has a surprisingly strong, roughened beauty made more acute by the rivers and gorges it nestles inbetween. If you give it a bit of attention, you will not be disappointed; the Interstate does not nearly do this surprising city justice, however, and so it will have to reveal its allure in the next section along old US 395.