Fort George Wright's Hospital

 

Care to hear my confession? My Air Force father was lucky to draw housing for our family of five in 1954 in what is now a house owned by Mukogawa (Japanese Girls' School). This is a photo from 1960; I remember bike riding with friends to the backside of this venerable old building and crawling inside through a broken winder to explore the abandoned building. Weren't we terribly bad and daring?

Thanks to the website Spokane Historical and the article by Lee Nilsson titled WWII Convalescent Hospital, I learned more about my place of adventure.

"Training for combat at Fort George Wright gave way to recovery and recuperation during the second World War. In 1941, Fort Wright had changed hands and become part of the U.S. Army Air Force. Being used as a base hospital for its first few years, in early 1944 Fort Wright was turned into a full fledged army convalescent center.  Soldiers and airmen who had been wounded in action fighting against Japan and Germany found a place of peaceful healing at Fort George Wright. Aside from direct medical care supplied by the Army and Red Cross staff, the Fort was designed to heal the spirit of the wounded warriors as well."

** There is available more to learn about Fort George Wright and the hospital.  Enter the link below..... there is even a short video!

Lee Nilsson, “Welcome to Historic Fort George Wright,” Spokane Historical, accessed September 13, 2023, https://spokanehistorical.org/items/show/173.

Who was Whist-alks? Why did they rename Ft. George Wright drive?

 

We've referenced "forever" that Spokane Falls Community College was west of town on Ft. Wright Dr. So how come they changed the name of this thoroughfare??

Col. George Wright was not a hero to everybody and one heinous thing he did stands out. In September 1858, he called for a "peace meeting" and invited all the local chiefs, 7 in all. Once assembled, and at gunpoint, the chiefs were all hanged. This was Wright's idea of enforcing the peace. Chief Qualchan was among those seven. His wife, Whist-alks, escaped. 

Qualchan is "memoralized" by a nearby golf course named for him.  His wife was Whist-alks and the name of the road going through old Fort George Wright, past SFCC, was changed to honor her.

Now you know.   How do you feel about it knowing the full story? 

Forts George Wright and Worden Used the Same Building Plan

Things we take for granted today were not widely used 100 years ago. Take window screens. They were invented in the early 1800s, and were plentifully in use by the late 1800s but some windows used other methods to deny nature's entry.

I snapped these photos during a tour of the Commandant's house on Fort Worden in Port Townsend, Washington, when I visited there in August. Was this really the bathroom of the 1905 house? Pretty nice. But then the Commandant's home had to be extra nice. The window was open and I noticed the spike-strips nailed on the outside window sill. I assumed they were to keep away the pigeons and other birds?? I've seen these strips used on the outsides of public buildings to keep away the pooing-pigeons but never on a window sill. How about you?

This is "my" house out on Fort George Wright. I say "my house," because in 1956 it was auxiliary base housing for Fairchild Air Force Base. We had moved with the Air Force to Spokane and Dad drew housing in THIS HOUSE! (It's now the Nelly Mosher guest house on Mukogawa.) I share this picture to show you that the house I toured at Fort Worden was built on almost the exact same floor plan:

I found it most interesting to note that here in Spokane they built the fort buildings of brick and over in Port Townsend they used lumber...... and the construction period is nearly the same.

Gives me pause to wonder if other military forts of the period used the same building plans? Makes sense that they did.