The Spokane & Inland Empire Railroad started as a streetcar line, used largely for real estate development, and grew into a regional electric railway noted for its cutting edge technology and elegant sense of style. Jay P. Graves and the other men connected with the railroad, created land improvement companies designed to provide luxury resorts, as well as plan small towns. Within a few years, the rail lines would stretch from Spokane to Coeur d’Alene and Hayden lakes to the east, with another line heading south through the Palouse, splitting at Spring Valley to Colfax and Moscow.

"In its heyday the electrified Spokane & Inland Empire Railroad carried huge numbers of passengers between Spokane, Washington and the Idaho towns of Coeur d'Alene and Moscow as well as to Colfax, Washington. This book describes in detail the history of the S & IE rail system from its amalgamation of a group of companies in the early 1900s to almost comp[l]ete abandonment by Burlington Northern 70 years later"--Jacket flap.

At the falls of the Spokane River, in the heart of Washington’s now booming Inland Empire, Spokane stands as a symbol of an America that, in many ways, is only just beginning, and Miss Fargo here gives the story of its rise from trading post to regional metropolis. Lightly and skillfully she brings the city and its past to life through the toil, the triumphs, the zest for work and fun of its citizens—people like: Ross Cox, “scribbling clerk” of the fur trade era who was lost for two terrifying weeks in the Palouse hills; Father Cataldo of the Jesuits from whose “rock pile” arose Gonzaga University; the hotel-keeper’s wife whose party dress froze to the wall just as she was about to show Spokane its first waltz; Jim Glover, “Father of Spokane;” and “Dutch Jake,” who ran a gambling resort and crossed swords with Ida Tarbell. Spokane Story is the colorful history of a colorful city and its people, from the years of its lusty youth to the day when a clergyman sat in the Mayor’s chair and a new city charter heralded the end of its days as a frontier town.