A tour of historic Fort George Wright in Spokane, Washington.

Sponsored by the Spokane Regional Health District, this oral history project documents the devastating effects of the construction of the I-90 freeway on the East Central neighborhood.

World War Two was pivotal for Spokane and the Inland Northwest. The U.S. Military viewed the region as strategically valuable, so existing military facilities, including Fort George Wright and Felts Field were expanded. Thousands of American soldiers came into the area for training, including bomber pilots and crews at Geiger Field and submarine crews at Farragut. New supply depots were built, including the Spokane Army Air Depot which was renamed Fairchild Airforce Base following the war, and…

Fort Spokane feature layers of fascinating and often heart-breaking history. The site, now administered by the National Park Service and Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area, began life as the last Army Fort built on the American frontier. It later became an Boarding School for the forced assimilation of Native American children. After that is served as a tuberculosis sanatorium for native men and women with that often deadly disease. This virtual tour shares some of the stories embedded…

In Spokane as in the rest of the United States, structural racism has taken many forms. Among the most consequential has been segregated housing. Restricting racial minorities to certain "redlined" neighborhoods served to prevent the targeted groups from building political power or inter-generational wealth. Though legally abolished by the Fair Housing Act of 1968, racial discrimination in housing continued to be written into legal documents for decades and shapes the city to this day. The…