Then and Now: Union Park Addition
Sep. 22—In 1888, real estate company Hunt, Dart and Co. advertised to sell whole blocks in east Spokane in Union Park Addition.
A 1933 Spokesman-Review story stated that "Hunt, Dart & Co. was the most progressive real estate firm of the 1889 boom days, when pioneers were platting their homesteads and putting them on the market as additions to the city. The firm spent $15,000 on an advertising and selling campaign." With $5,000 of that spent in three national magazines to promote the city with the offer of a free map of Spokane. Ten thousand people requested the map.
The advertisement rhapsodized about the region's beauty. "Spokane is the capital city of the Inland Empire and, like a young empress, sits upon her throne on each side of the snowy falls."
The new city around the water falls had expanded toward Browne's Addition and the South Hill with new suburban growth, creating demand for houses willing to commute, on foot, horse-drawn conveyance or trolley, from those new neighborhoods.
The Union Park addition, a large part of the east side of Spokane, was less desirable because of industrial use, warehouses and few scenic views. An 1889 newspaper advertisement from J.E. Everhart & Co. offered 48 house lots in Union Park for $4,800. Another ad, from H.L. Moody Real Estate, offered three Union Park lots for $225. A scan of real estate ads for single -family homes in 1925 show homes on the Lower South Hill going for $2,800 to $3,000, on the North Side for $1,800 to $2,500 while there were several homes in Union Park for $1,200 to $1,600. The city directories show East Sprague Avenue through Union Park had many grocery stores and churches, as well as Union Park Bank.
In 1920, Union Park residents organized and formed the East Side Community Association to request the city to build a public swimming pool on the city's East Side.
The Union Park School, built in the 1890s, was at Fifth Avenue and Lee Street, the site of today's Martin Luther King Jr. Family Outreach Center.
In 1922, the East Side Industrial Club, a business group, announced they wanted to get rid of the name Union Park, displayed on streetcars leaving downtown. Since that time, locals have called it East Central or just East Side.
Today, the business improvement district there has adopted the name Sprague Union District.
