Spokane expands at a rapid pace…

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

Jay P. Graves’s early years in Spokane clearly influenced the transition between horses and motor vehicles.  The street railway enabled and encouraged the rapid building and expansion of Spokane.  The extension of his line through the South Hill fed the development of the Manito Park area.  Although Graves’s most financially significant accomplishment was the development of the Granby Mining, Smelting and Power Company in British Columbia (the largest copper producing mine in Canada at the time), his most important accomplishment in the Inland Northwest was the development of the electric railway system.

The caption in a July 9, 1907 newspaper article read:  “SPOKANE TO HOLD A WORLD’S REECORD:  longest Electric System on Earth Owned by One Company”.  Graves was quoted as saying, “Spokane has more miles of electric railroads than any other city in the Pacific coast states.”  The article continued, “This statement looks big, but it is substantiated by figures…Los Angeles comes second with a number of miles less than Spokane.”   In the final stage of development, Graves’s Inland Northwest railway empire consisted of some 250 miles.  In 1906, with the rapid expansion of the electric lines, the need to develop a private source of power (heretofore supplied by Washington Water Power) began to materialize.  Construction was started on the Nine Mile power plant on the Spokane River (now owned by W.W.P.).  Graves’s various rail lines and interests were finally organized into one large company – the Spokane & Inland Empire Railroad Company.  In October of 1909, he sold this line to the Great Northern Pacific railways.

During Grave’s development of his electric railroad, the Inland Northwest’s first serial murder was uncovered.  In December 1903, while grading for a sidetrack on the new Spokane and Coeur d’Alene electric line – a line Graves absorbed in 1904 – a construction crew unearthed a total of 11 skeletons near Coeur d’Alene.  Most of the remains were found in shallow graves on or near the grounds of former Fatty Carroll’s Resort.  Because “serial murder” was an unrecognized occurrence at the time and investigation techniques quite unrefined, the skulls and bones were exhibited in the various saloons and business houses around Coeur d’Alene.  This technique apparently was ineffective – it remains an unsolved mystery today.