Archive for the ‘Local News’ Category
Spokane Mourns the Loss of a Landmark
Mary Lou’s Milk Bottle, a beloved restaurant and landmark in Spokane’s Garland District, burned to the ground on the night of September 25. The fire also destroyed Ferguson’s Café next door, and was so large and difficult to contain that it took 50 firemen almost two hours to put it out. Both restaurants were featured in the 1993 movie Benny and Joon, and the Milk Bottle in particular has come to be nationally known as an iconic location in Spokane.
The Milk Bottle was built in 1935 as a retail store for the Benewah Dairy. At 38 feet tall and 15 feet wide, it is one of a handful of giant milk bottle buildings scattered around the United States—and one of the most famous. The dairy closed down in the early 70’s, leaving the Milk Bottle unused until 1994, when it reopened as Mary Lou’s restaurant, serving some of the best local burgers, thick-cut fries, and delicious homemade ice cream. Mary Lou’s has been a favorite among North Spokane residents ever since, and their ice cream became so popular that it was served in other local restaurants around town. The restaurant had an old-fashioned charm to its décor, with black and white checkered tile floor, historic photos displayed on the walls, and 50’s style bar stools at the front counter. At first, the Mary Lou’s Milk Bottle was open only for lunch, but the past two summers their hours were extended into the mid-evening so that locals could grab an ice cream cone to cool down on a hot summer night. Many people around Spokane have fond memories of both the Milk Bottle and Ferguson’s Café and have been devastated to learn that they are gone, describing it as a heartbreaking loss for the city.
Update: Although the Ferguson’s building has been deemed a total loss, the Milk Bottle is still structurally intact. The owners of both restaurants state that they have plans to rebuild. The cause of the fire is still under investigation at this time.
Celebrate the Grand Opening of Spokane Public Market!
Spokane Public Market is celebrating its Grand Opening this Friday and Saturday! This is an exciting opportunity to explore Spokane’s newest market for local farmers, artisans, and small businesses. Local businesses like the ones you can find at the Spokane Public Market are the lifeblood of a community, offering unique products that are grown and made in the area with an eye toward quality that is so often missing from mass produced goods and commercially grown food. When you purchase from these vendors, you know that your money is going to support people who live and work in the same area as you do, thereby supporting the economy of your hometown.
Mountain Valley View Farm, Inc. is proud to be a vendor at the Spokane Public Market. In addition to our delicious, fresh organic produce, you will find baked goods, all natural goat cheese in a variety of flavors, healthy teas and juices, candies, cut flowers, and nursery stock. Our booth is easy to find: it’s on the Northeast corner at the end of the aisle when you first walk in–just look for our sign. We would love to meet you and tell you more about our family farm.
Other unique items you can find for sale at the Spokane Public Market include freshly picked huckleberries and wild mushrooms; arts and crafts including dolls, sculpture, herbal soaps, hand-dyed yarns, handcrafted jewelry, leather handbags, and candles; gourmet caramel candies and chocolates; locally caught fish as well as locally raised beef, pork, poultry, and goat meat; and so much more. There is almost no end to the variety of amazing things you can discover at the market! A full list of vendors can be viewed here.
The Spokane Public Market is open each week Thursday-Saturday from 10AM to 6PM, and plans to operate year-round. Please spread the word about their Grand Opening by grabbing a flyer and showing it to your friends and coworkers! You can print the flyer at the top of the post, or choose from one of the following flyers as well (click on either image to view and print it in a larger format). Thank you for supporting local businesses in the Spokane area!
COME SEE US AT THE FAIR!
Karen’s Collectors Cottage, Inc. & Art Gallery is at the Spokane County Interstate Fair! We invite you to visit our booth (Bay 1, Booth 269 – west end, center section) for a fantastic selection of fiction and nonfiction books, cookbooks, poetry, cards, bookmarks, custom art, gift baskets and more!
Mention that you saw this post on a blog and receive 10% off anything in our booth.
Father’s Day Only Comes Once a Year So It’s Time to Remember Dad!
The first observance of Father’s Day took place in Fairmont, West Virginia, on July 5, 1908. It was organized by Mrs. Grace Golden Clayton, who wanted to celebrate the lives of the 210 fathers who had been lost in the Monongah Mining disaster several months earlier in Monongah, West Virginia, on December 6, 1907. Clayton chose the Sunday nearest to the birthday of her recently deceased father.
Unfortunately, the day was overshadowed by other events in the city, West Virginia did not officially register the holiday, and it was not celebrated again. All the credit for Father’s Day went to Sonora Dodd from Spokane, who invented independently her own celebration of Father’s Day just two years later.
Clayton’s celebration was forgotten until 1972, when one of the attendants to the celebration saw Nixon’s proclamation of Father’s Day, and worked to recover its legacy. Fairmont is now promoted as the “Home of the First Father’s Day Service.”
A bill to accord national recognition of the holiday was introduced in Congress in 1913. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson went to Spokane to speak in a Father’s Day celebration and wanted to make it official, but Congress resisted, fearing that it would become commercialized. US President Calvin Coolidge recommended in 1924 that the day be observed by the nation, but stopped short of issuing a national proclamation. Two earlier attempts to formally recognize the holiday had been defeated by Congress. In 1957, Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith wrote a proposal accusing Congress of ignoring fathers for 40 years while honoring mothers, thus “[singling] out just one of our two parents.” In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers, designating the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day. Six years later, the day was made a permanent national holiday when President Richard Nixon signed it into law in 1972.
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Stop by the Mountain Valley View Farm booth at the farmers’ market, where we will be offering farm fresh healthy items to give to Dad. If you are looking for any particular farm item, let us know and we will try to bring it to the market.
Items that we will have at the market this week are: farm fresh eggs and farm fresh goat milk for animal consumption.
32 W. 2nd Ave
Spokane, WA 99210
509-624-1154
info@spokanepublicmarket.org
Hours: 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. Wed – Fri
5th Ave between Division & Brown
Spokane, WA 99210
509-995-0182
Hours: 8:45 a.m. – 1 p.m. Wed & Sat
Spokane Northside Farmers’ Market
315 E. Francis
Spokane, WA 99205
509-979-1051
Hours: Wed 3 – 7 p.m. and Sat 9 a.m. – 1 p.m.
1421 N. Meadowood Lane
Liberty Lake, WA 99019
marketmanager@llfarmersmarket.com
Hours: 8:45 a.m. – 1 p.m. Sat
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Mountain Valley View Farm, Inc.
Your Source for Northwest Farm Fresh Foods Shipped Worldwide
4301 South Chapman Road
Greenacres, Washington 99016-8732 USA
Phone (509) 928-1800 | Fax (509) 922-9949
www.mountainvalleyviewfarm.com
www.mountainvalleyviewfarmstore.com
Email: sales@mountainvalleyviewfarm.com
Blog with us at www.mountainvalleyviewfarmblog.com
Mountain Valley View Farm Hours:
Monday – Saturday
8:00 a.m. – Noon; 1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. (Pacific Time)
Closed Noon – 1:00 p.m.
Other farm hours by advance appointment only.
Please call (509) 928-1800 to schedule an appointment.
Getaway Studio Dining Room and Supper Club
& Bed and Breakfast
Phone (509) 928-8900
Directions to Mountain Valley View Farm, Inc.
From I-90 East or West
Take the Sullivan Exit (291B) – South for about 3 miles
Turn left on Saltese (east), and continue straight for .5 mile
Turn right on South Chapman Road (south), and proceed .9 mile
The farm will be on the left-hand side of the road – 4301 South Chapman Road
Whispering Pine Press celebrates GetLit!
This week is the 13th annual Get Lit! literary festival sponsored by Eastern Washington University. Events run from April 13-17, and include poetry slams, book readings, panel discussions, writing contests, and workshops. For a full calendar of this year’s events, click here. Over 40 nationally acclaimed and local authors will be in Spokane for Get Lit!; past guests have included such luminaries as Kurt Vonnegut, Salman Rushdie, and David Sedaris. Prominent authors for GetLit! 2011 are Tim O’Brien, Sena Jeter Naslund, Maude Barlow, Sam Kean, Matthew Dickman, Louise Borden, Michael Harmon, Suzanne Morgan Williams, and Ani DiFranco. For a full list of authors attending this year’s festival, click here.
The Big Read is an event created by the National Endowment for the Arts with the goal of restoring reading to the center of a community’s culture by “[drawing] communities together around a single book through a month long series of related literary events.” For Spokane County’s third Big Read event, the book chosen is The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, a collection of stories about soldiers who served in the Vietnam War. The Things They Carried was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Award. The Big Read will culminate on April 16 at the Bing Crosby Theater, when Tim O’Brien and veteran/poet Brian Turner will discuss their experiences in war and their resulting creative works. This event is also part of GetLit!.
To celebrate GetLit!, Whispering Pine Press is offering a 10% discount on all books from April 13-17. Please visit our website to see our list of children’s and adult fiction, cookbooks, poetry collections, and more. If you have any difficulty getting the 10% discount on our website, feel free to call us at (509) 928-8700.
In honor of GetLit!, we are also giving away one free copy of Frost of Spring Green, Karen Hood’s widely-acclaimed first poetry collection. Click here to read a review of the book, then leave a comment on this post to be entered into the giveaway. Don’t forget to include your e-mail address so that we can contact you if you win! Entries will be accepted through April 23 to give everyone time to participate.
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