Cemetery Properties in Spokane

SPOTLIGHT ON THE SPOKANE REGION

By Kris Krell

Cemetery Properties in Spokane

Funerals are a part of everyday life for adults.  Our family members and friends die; we attend funerals.  In our genealogy work, we use Find a Grave to acquire pictures of the graves for our ancestors and sometimes obtain more information about birth and death dates, place of death, and so on.  We also use the Social Security Index to confirm death and birth dates for ancestors.  

Funerary (all things related to funerals or commemoration of the dead) customs are about the combination of beliefs and practices used by a society to remember and respect the dead in their honor. This funerary industry—a lucrative enterprise--is due to society believing that honoring the deceased was/is of greatest importance.  

Here’s a brief history of funerary properties throughout history and in Spokane:

The Puritans, in the 1600s, believed in in-ground burials in land that was a common community burial grounds.  This was the opposite of the popular and accepted European custom of burying the dead in churchyards.  This new Puritan burial practice was called the Rural Cemetery Movement.  This  movement was also further inspired in the 1800s by the romantic perceptions of nature, art, national identity, and melancholy theme of death.  Rural cemeteries in America were usually built on elevated view sites of the city outskirts.

When in-ground burials became more popular, Civil War reformers spoke out about their health and land issues.  They believed that land should be conserved, so they wanted to revive the practice of cremation.  Cremation movement was popular at the turn of the century, especially on the west coast. 

The next movement in the 20^thcentury, was the perpetual-care lawn cemeteries and memorial parks.  Monuments and headstones became less popular in favor of vast lawns using the natural beauty of the area and open green spaces, horizontally flat grave markers that made maintenance easy.  Memorial parks were managed and designed by full-time professionals; whereas 19^thcentury cemeteries were generally operated by voluntary associations which sold individual plots to be marked and maintained by private owners. With the memorial park, the plan was that every plot and grave received perpetual care.

As cemeteries evolved, the funeral home and casket businesses came into being.  With these new businesses in the late 1800s and 1900s, an undertaker prepared bodies for burial or cremation in a funeral home, funeral parlor, or mortuary.  Prior to this, bodies were prepared for burial by the family or a professional undertaker, and the burial took place within a few days of death.  

In Spokane, the following cemeteries (funerary properties) were designed and built in the perpetual-care lawn cemeteries and memorial parksmovement:

Greenwood Memorial Terrace         Built in 1888 on Government Way

Fairmount Memorial Park               Built in 1888 on W. Wellesley Ave.

Riverside Memorial Park                 Built in 1914 on Government Way

Holy Cross Cemetery                      Built in 1933 on N Wall Street

Spokane Memorial Gardens            Built in 1954 S Cheney-Spokane Road

Greenwood Cemetery (now Greenwood Memorial Park) was planned and funded by Anthony Cannon one of Spokane’s most celebrated early pioneers and other Spokane businesses. Greenwood allocated a portion of its cemetery for Jewish burials—the first and only cemetery in Spokane to do so.

Fairmount Cemetery (now Fairmount Memorial Park) was built by a priest, the Reverend J M Cataldo, S.J.  He developed the cemetery for $10,000, and it was built as a Roman Catholic Church.

Riverside Park Cemetery (now Riverside Memorial Park) across from Greenwood Cemetery was developed by Spokane mining millionaire, John A Finch and other wealthy Spokane businessmen in 1907, but not built until 1914.

Holy Cross Cemetery was developed as another Roman Catholic cemetery.

The first notice in Spokane that professionals were readying bodies for burial was listed in the 1888 City Directory; two undertakers were listed and located on Sprague Avenue  in downtown Spokane.  In 1889, Bicksler & Webster Co. located on W Riverside Avenue, advertised their business, 

”Everything requisite for first-class funerals at the shortest notice. 

 All calls attended immediately, day or night. Embalming a 

specialty.” 

The next year, three undertakers were listed in city directories.  They were: Morrison Brothers on Riverside, 

Smith & Luce on Sprague, and 

Spokane Undertakers on Riverside.  

By 1892, Smith & Luce advertised themselves as “undertakers, embalmers, and florists.” 

By 1902, Spokane city directories listed seven funerary establishments in classified ads under “cemeteries,” “funeral directors,” “undertakers,” and “coffin makers.”

By 1912, Spokane’s population had grown to 100,000.  This was the year that buildings were specifically built as funeral homers.  Architectural styles were distinctive, high aesthetic interiors and exteriors.  

The rural cemetery trend also allowed for the casket manufacturing industry.  By the end of the 20^thcentury, caskets were no longer functional pine boxes but extravagant caskets whose interiors were upholstered, and made of wood such as mahogany, rosewood, or steel.  

In Spokane, the first advertisement for a casket-manufacturing business was 1896—The Spokane Coffin Factory on Post Street.  In 1905, the Inland Casket Company factory came in direct friendly competition with The Spokane Coffin Factory (renamed in 1903 to Spoken Casket Company.)  By 1978, both companies closed their doors due to being unable to compete with the Eastern United States mega-national casket manufacturers.  

Sources: Donna Potter Phillips, Spokane Register of Historic Places