The Millwood Historic District in Millwood, Washington is a historic district that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001. The listing included 69 contributing buildings and one other contributing site. It includes work by architect Harold Whitehouse.
Setting
Millwood is a suburb of Spokane located along the Spokane River about a mile east of the Spokane city limits and surrounded on three sides by the City of Spokane Valley. It is a mostly flat area to the south of the Spokane River on the valley floor.
The Millwood Historic District occupies roughly eight square blocks in the northwest quadrant of Millwood. It is bounded by Euclid Avenue on the south, Argonne Road on the east and stretches to include the west side of Sargent Road on the west and the north side of Liberty Avenue on the north. A railroad track runs immediately south of Euclid Avenue.
It was the first area developed in Millwood, with the bulk of the development coming between the 1920s and 1940s. There is a distinct difference in the architecture and tree canopy between the historic district and the rest of the residential and commercial areas of Millwood which were developed more recently. The boundary between the historic district and the rest of the city is obvious to see in most places. Within the district, the streets are tree-lined and built with sidewalks. Outside the district, street trees are lacking and sidewalks mostly non-existent.
Argonne Road is the main street through Millwood, connecting the city with the rest of the Spokane area via highways to the south. As the main street, it is home to the commercial section of the historic district, which runs along the west side of Argonne and wraps around for the first block of Euclid Avenue. The rest of the district is single-family residential in nature.
History
Early history
Prior to European settlement, the area that is now the historic district was homeland to the Spokane people. A winter camp for the upper Spokane was recorded in the area.
European settlement in the Millwood area began with Antoine Plante, who founded a ferry across the river in 1856 about two miles upstream. M.F. Warren became the first settler to homestead within the borders of the historic district in 1883. Development in the area was spurred on in 1903 when an electric interurban railway connecting Spokane to Coeur d'Alene was routed through Millwood. The community became known as Woodard Junction after the family that provided land for the railway and station. What became known as Argonne Road was established through the area in 1908 to connect the Spokane Valley community of Dishman, Washington, on the south side of the valley opposite Millwood, north to the Spokane River at Millwood.
Foundational years
During the early 1900s, as the city of Spokane saw its population swell, the Spokane Valley became a regional center for farming — nearby communities like Greenacres and Otis Orchards reflect that history in their names. Millwood grew along a similar track until 1910 when the Inland Empire Paper Company began work on a paper mill on the east side of Argonne Road. This construction and industrial development in the Millwood area changed the nature of the community from a rural, agricultural area into a more settled town.
Soon after construction of the mill, which expanded numerous times over the following years, developers and financiers behind the new mill worked to change the community's name from Woodard Station to something that would advertise the presence of the mill and its economic impact on the area. With the approval of the Woodard family, the name was changed to Millwood.
As workers flocked to the area, many from paper mills in the Midwest, other businesses were established in the area to serve the new population. A store, barbershop, restaurant and hotel had been established by 1911, the year the mill opened for business.
Despite the overwhelming presence of the Inland Empire Paper Company in the town's economy, connectivity with other towns around the Spokane Valley prevented Millwood from becoming a company town. A steel bridge was built across the river in 1909. Nearby subdivisions like Orchard Avenue, between Millwood and Spokane, were closer to the commercial district in Millwood than to those in the much larger city of Spokane. Millwood's location meant that the town would serve more than just workers at the paper mill.