The Founding of Manito Park – The Story Continues….

According to the book, “Manito Park: A Reflection of Spokane’s Past”, by Tony Bamonte and Suzanne Schaeffer Bamonte of www.tornadocreekpublications.com:

Grave’s ancestral line is traced to Captain Thomas Graves, who came to Jamestown, Virginia, (the first permanent English settlement in America) in 1608.  Captain Graves made passage on the William and Mary, the second ship to make this voyage.  The family tree reveals a long line of significant accomplishments on a national level.  Following graduation in 1880 from Carthage College in Carthage, Illinois, Jay Graves engaged in the hardware business in Plymouth, Illinois.  By 1887 Spokane Falls was gaining a reputation as a city of great opportunity.  This information, and the lure of the West, drew Graves to Spokane in late 1887.  His initial ventures in Spokane were in Real Estate investment.  Many of Graves’s early business dealings were somewhat complicated, being cloaked in various partnerships and names.  However, his entrepreneurial interests were broad, centering around mining, railroads and urban development.

Graves was particularly fortunate during the Panic.  By 1894 many of Spokane’s founders and early promoters had suffered financially.  Among them were Francis Cook, James Glover and Anthony Cannon.  John Fahey, in his book Shaping Spokane, states:

The panic did not destroy everyone, did not maul uniformly.  While hundreds lost fortunes and property, a man with money could select among unique bargains in real estate.  For example, John A. Finch, miner-turned-real-estate speculator, foreclosed Muzzy’s Addition; the Hypotheekbank took Cannon’s and Cook’s additions, and the Provident Trust, Cook’s street railway.  Sales of abandoned, foreclosed, and tax-delinquent property in and near Spokane would go on for years… thus, distress for many meant opportunity for a few.  While jobless men occupied the old city haymarket, intending to march with Coxey, by contrast 73 borrowers repaid the Hypotheekbank.  A newspaper estimated that there were 650 homeless persons in Spokane, sleeping in saloons or a tabernacle.  On the other hand, contractors built a flour mill and 400 new houses (average cost $1,000) in the city during 1894.  The state underwrote an insane asylum at nearby Medical Lake and a normal school at Cheney and Spokane County built a French Renaissance courthouse as relief projects.  But when the City of Spokane called on individual citizens and business to be sureties for a new waterworks, 155 pledged from $500 to $40,000.  Neither Graves nor Clough [Clough was one of Jay Graves’s partners in development], incidentally signed as surety.

By 1901 the depression was over and the economy was booming again.  For those, such as Graves, who had anticipated the future, now was the time to take action.  On November 21, 1901, the first hint of something greater for Cook’s Montrose Park appeared in the paper.  The Spokane Daily Chronicle published a headline that read, “WILL GIVE A FINE PARK … Companies Owing Large Tracts of Land on the Southern Hill to Present a Big Tract to the City of Spokane … CITY MAY SECURE EIGHTY ACRES.”

Tune in next week for the next chapter in the story of the birth of Manito Park.