In 2002, Washington State University professor David Wang asked several Spokane-area architects, planners, and academics to contribute chapters to an effort entitled Sounding Spokane: Perspectives on the Built Environment of a Regional City. The book highlighted many of the City’s most pressing issues, opportunities and political challenges, including one chapter on the history of the river and more recent efforts to renew it. The chapter, “Spokane’s Falls and River Gorge: Evolving Ties Between a Community and its Wellspring,” was contributed by architect/planner Rick Hastings, and covers the origins and primary aims of Friends of the Falls. An excerpt:

“The answer may be that the prime value of the Gorge won’t be as a park at all, but as a civic emblem, a central landscape providing not only beauty but iconic value, and through that value, the growth of identity for a city sorely lacking in self-worth and pride. However cast, the Falls and Gorge define the heart of Spokane; when abused, they present an unsightly centerpiece; when cut off by dams, they convey disdain for nature; when celebrated, they may captivate the world. The condition of the river inescapably affects both visitor and resident.”

By permission, the link below downloads a copy of Hastings’ chapter. Purchase the entire book from Eastern Washington University Press by clicking here.

Sounding Spokane - Chapter 4 (764 Kb, Acrobat® file)