Mount Spokane State Park History

Washington’s largest state park envelops the summit and slopes of 5,887-foot Mount Spokane. The park’s roads, trails and ski runs provide access to a wide variety of habitats, from old growth forests to the splintered rock fields and meadows at the mountain’s peak. The summit features the historic Vista House, built as an emergency relief project in 1933 using blocks of the mountain’s native granite.

Prominence and Isolation

Mount Spokane is one of the most dramatic mountains in Washington State. It rises over 3,500 feet above its base and is situated over 30 miles from the nearest higher land. Geographers quantify the significance of a mountain’s presence by its prominence, or its elevation above the surroundings, and its isolation, or the distance from the nearest higher land. Because Mount Spokane has high values for both prominence and isolation, it is visible from a wide region and the views from its summit are far-reaching.

Mount Spokane is a piece of Washington’s ancient geologic past, much older than the Cascade Mountains. The mountain is part of a larger regional structure called a metamorphic core complex. The earth’s crust was thickened here by the forces of plte tectonics millions of years ago. The lumped material eventually began to sag and stretch apart, revealing metamorphosed granitic rocks in its core.

The piles of granitic boulders exposed on the summit of the mountain are known as a felsenmeer (a sea of rock). The rock piles formed as outcrops and boulders of the granite were broken into smaller, angular pieces by cycles of freezing and thawing.

Indigenous Lands

The park lies within the traditional territories of Interior Salish Indigenous people whose present-day descendants include members of the Spokane Tribe of Indians, the Kalispell Tribe of Indians, the Coeur d’Alene Tribe and the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation. For thousands of years, the mountain has provided habitat for a diverse community of life that is important to their cultures. In particular, the mountain forests and meadows are filled with beargrass, huckleberries, thimbleberries, Oregon grape and kinnikinnick that are widely used for subsistence, material goods and artwork.

Members of the tribes occupying this area were not represented at the Walla Walla Treaty Council held by Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens on June 9, 1855. Many engaged in armed conflict with the occupying US Army, culminating in the Battle of Spokane Plains on September 5, 1858. Subsequently, an Executive Order of President Rutherford B. Hayes on January 18, 1881, created the Spokane Indian Reservation and relinquished title to more than 3 million acres of land to the US federal government. Many Spokane area tribal members continued to live at their traditional non-reservation homes until 1887, when they were required to move to the Spokane, Coeur d’Alene, Flathead or Colville Reservations.

Government surveys were completed in 1905 and most of the land in today’s Mount Spokane State Park was conveyed into private ownership as a part of the Northern Pacific Railroad Land Grant. The US Congress had approved the grant in 1864, which eventually conveyed nearly 40 million acres of public domain lands to subsidize the construction of railroad lines into the western states. The company offered the granted lands for sale to private buyers to increase their profit margin.

About 2,000 acres of today’s park was granted to individuals as Homestead Entry patents, after they had met the occupancy and development requirements. The State of Washington was granted nearly 1,400 acres of today’s park area at statehood in 1889 to be managed in trust “for all the people” to benefit the state’s public schools and other public institutions. The remainder of the lands now making up the park were sold by the federal government to individuals as Cash Entry patents. Two of these cash sales were to individuals who played a role in the establishment of the park—Silas Cook and Adolf Linder.

Paradise Camp

The land that would become Mount Spokane State Park was initially promoted by Francis H. Cook, a newspaper publisher and real estate developer from Spokane. He was inspired by the views from the mountain and was able to purchase a portion of the state trust land at the summit. In 1909, he and his son Silas began construction of a road to a site on his land that he called “Paradise Camp.” He charged an entrance fee of fifty cents to visitors who could camp at the site and climb a steep trail to the summit.

Cook succeeded in getting the mountain renamed “Mount Spokane” (it was previously known as Mt Carlton or Old Baldy) and promoted Paradise Camp as a must-see destination for any visitors to the city of Spokane. On August 23, 1912, a ceremony was held on the summit to celebrate the renaming, attended by the governor and many dignitaries.

Making A State Park

Many leaders in Spokane urged the establishment of a park on Mount Spokane, but no state or local agency had the authority to own or operate a park.

Governor Ernest Lister signed House Bill 509 on March 19, 1913, establishing a State Board of Park Commissioners authorized to receive donations of lands for state park purposes but the legislation did not provide any funding for the operation of the parks. The Board was not willing to take on responsibility for a large area such as Mount Spokane.

In May 1919, Spokane County purchased Cook’s land, but did not have legal authority to manage land for park purposes, so the land was placed in a trust managed by Spokane hotelier Louis Davenport.

On March 19, 1921, Governor Louis F. Hart approved House Bill 164, establishing the State Parks Committee with funding and enforcement authority to manage state parks. On July 8, 1927, the State Parks Committee formally accepted the donation of about 1,400 acres of land including the Spokane County trust lands and a donation from the Northern Pacific Railroad to create Mount Spokane State Park. The park was dedicated on August 20, 1927, with more than 400 people gathered on the summit. In his address, State Parks Committee Chairman Clark V. Savidge said, “It would be hard to imagine a gathering whose underlying motives could be purer than those of this one. We are building a sanctuary…”

Many individuals and companies donated additional lands to enlarge the park, including the Cowles family, Silas Cook and Adolf Linder. Linder reserved timber harvest rights on the lands he donated, prompting a group of Spokane activists to purchase the timber rights on 320 acres of the donated lands in the heart of the park to preserve the uncut forests in 1939.

Building the Vista House

Washington State Governor Roland H. Hartley vetoed operational funding for state parks from 1929 through 1932, causing the closure of Mount Spokane State Park. Without funding even to support a caretaker, the park became a dumping ground, and the Department of Health was asked to step in to clean it up. After $100,000 of park funding was restored by Governor Clarence Martin in 1933, newly hired State Parks Superintendent William Weigle was asked to implement repairs and develop a plan for reopening the parks.

Weigle sought a design for a vista house on the summit of Mount Spokane and approved a plan by Spokane architect Henry C. Bertlesen for a rustic style stone masonry building. A late request by the Department of Forestry to include a fire lookout tower as part of the building was accommodated with emergency work relief funding provided by the state legislature as a response to unemployment caused by the Great Depression.

Construction proceeded quickly, racing against the oncoming winter snows, under the supervision of contractor Einar Ole Fieldstad, using stone from the nearby felsenmeer. In October 1933, Washington Secretary of State Hutchinson visited the nearly complete building and noted “the architect has caused it to appear as though that Vista House had grown spontaneously without the aid of either architect or artisan from the top of the mountain.” Construction was completed on November 21, 1933, just as heavy winter snows began to accumulate on the mountain. The Vista House was one of the first major projects completed by the State Parks Committee to improve conditions in parks across the state and provide additional amenities for park visitors.

Repairs to the building’s roof and masonry were awarded the 2003 Valerie Sivinski Award for Outstanding Achievement in Historic Preservation Rehabilitation Projects.

Civilian Conservation Corps

In the 1930s as the Great Depression deepened, people throughout Washington and across the United States struggled with poverty as job losses and business closures erased their economic security. Newly elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved fast to provide material relief for suffering families, and one of the earliest hallmark programs of the administration was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Intended to provide useful employment and training for single men aged 18 to 25, the CCC ultimately provided jobs for more than 2 million enrollees who performed work in national and state parks and forests at more than 500 camps.

CCC project work at Mount Spokane began in April 1934, when a tent camp named Camp Francis Cook was constructed near the former location of Cook’s Paradise Camp. The camp was occupied during the summer months of 1934 and 1935 and sporadically after, by enrollees from Camp Seven Mile at Riverside State Park until it closed in 1940.

The primary goal of the CCC at Mount Spokane was to create a more accessible route to the summit. Building the modern road up Deadman Creek proved to be a difficult, yet worthwhile investment that continues to benefit visitors today. CCC crews also installed telephone lines, built retaining walls, restored logged areas, cleared ski trails and fought forest fires.

After the workdays ended and on weekends, enrollees had a variety of recreational and educational options. The recreation hall at the camp featured a piano, radio and ping-pong table and many enrollees brought their own musical instruments. Remnants of the CCC camp are visible in the park today, including a log building that served as the camp headquarters and is now used as a warming hut during the winter.

Skiing on Mount Spokane

By the 1930s, skiing had emerged as a popular sport at the park. Cabins, rope tows and jumps were built by local clubs on the west and south sides of the mountain. Local ski groups including the Spokane Ski Club and the Selkirk Ski Club advocated for the construction of infrastructure and facilities including a grand lodge that was completed in 1940. The lodge was short-lived as an electrical fire caused it to burn to the ground in 1952.

In 1946, Mount Spokane was home to the world's first double chair lift. Constructed by the Riblet Tramway Company of Spokane, the lift was actually a converted ore bucket mining tram. It was only in service for three seasons and was eventually replaced by the current Chair #1 in 1956. At the time, Chair #1 had the longest vertical rise of any lift in the northwest. Nordic and downhill skiing and snowboarding continue to be popular recreational activities in the park.

Spend a Night in a Fire Lookout

Construction of the Vista House displaced an existing fire lookout at the summit of Mount Spokane. A series of fire lookouts later replaced the function of the Vista House Lookout, beginning in 1948 with the construction of an 85-foot-high live-in tower. This structure collapsed during its first winter under the weight of snow and ice. A 45-foot tower with an L-4 live in cabin was built in 1950, which was replaced in 1963 with a 40-foot-tall live in cabin. The final 40-foot tower, built in 1979, was staffed until 1994. It is reputed that the fire lookout on Mount Spokane held the record for more reported wildfires than any of the other 657 fire lookouts in Washington.

The lookout building was dismantled and relocated to a shorter tower base at Quartz Mountain (also within the park) in 2004. The lookout portion of the Vista House remains as a reminder of the era of fire detection from mountaintop lookouts. The Quartz Mountain Lookout is available as a unique overnight rental accommodation for park visitors to experience life in a fire lookout.