The Bon Marche

Downtown Spokane

Frank Culbertson made his fortune in the Coeur 'dAlene mining district of Northern Idaho in the 1890s. He owned a department store known as the Wonder store in Spokane in the early 1900s. In 1913, the Wonder Store merged with Grote-Rankin to form Culbertson-Grote-Rankin. In 1914 the newly merged store built a new building at the northwest corner of N Howard St and W Main Ave. The store was a half-block long and a half-block wide. In the early 1920s, the store expanded north over the alley to an annex that was a quarter block long. From the beginning, office space was leased out on the upper floors. The building is also known as the Welch Building. The store was commonly referred to as Culbertson's.

Like many businesses, Culbertson's ran into financial problems during the Depression. After the Christmas shopping season of 1930, Culbertson's went out of business in early 1931. The building was temporarily used as office space by the federal government during World War II.

There were rumors before the war that the Seattle-based Bon Marche was going to expand into Spokane. These rumors were denied at the time by the president of the Bon Marche. After the war, however, The Bon Marche purchased the former Culbertson's store. The store was reopened as The Bon Marche in 1947. In 1951, the Bon Marche expanded its business in Spokane by purchasing The Palace Store. Located at the northeast corner of W Main Ave and N Post St, The Palace Store building was sold to J C Penney. Penney's renovated the building and moved from a smaller building to the former Palace store building in 1953. In the early to mid-1950s, The Bon Marche's Spokane store was branded as The Bon Marche-Palace Store. After its acquisition of The Palace store, The Bon Marche bought the southwest corner of the block, tore down the two story building on that site, and built an addition equal in size to the 1914 Culbertson-Grote-Rankin store building. This addition was completed in 1956. It may have been at this time that escalators were introduced to the store. The addition plus the side of the original building facing W Main Ave received a more modern facade. The east side of the building retained its original brick facade.

In 1960 The Bon Marche had built a parking garage on the block west of its downtown Seattle store linked to the store by a skybridge. The Parkade was built on the block southeast of the Spokane Bon Marche in 1966. It was linked to The Bon by covered but open air skybridges over Main and Howard. These skybridges were later glassed-in. Spokane was the site of a world's fair, Expo 74. In the years leading up to the fair, there were retail changes in downtown Spokane. J C Penney built a new store in 1973 on the south side of W Main Ave extending the full length of the block from Post to Lincoln. The former J C Penney was renovated and reopened as Nordstrom in 1974. The Crescent built an addition on the northwest corner of its block. Major stores and other buildings were linked by an extensive skybridge system.

For decades the Crescent was Spokane's leading department store. It was purchased by Marshall Field's in the 1960s. Field's had purchased Frederick & Nelson in Seattle in the 1920s. By 1970, The Crescent had three stores in the Spokane area: downtown, NorthTown, and University City. The Bon Marche had only the downtown store. Sears had moved from downtown to NorthTown in 1962. The former downtown Sears, also known as the Comstock Building, became the main public library. The Comstock Building was torn down and a new library on that site was built in the early 1990s. Montgomery Ward moved from its downtown building to Franklin Park Mall in 1976. The downtown Ward's became the city hall.

In the 1980s, Marshall Field's was purchased by BATUS. By the mid 1980s, BATUS had sold off the Frederick & Nelson and The Crescent to a Pacific Northwest investor group. This group sold Frederick & Nelson and The Crescent to David Sabey. For a time, The Crescent was branded as Frederick & Nelson. The company went out of business in the early 1990s. NorthTown was rebuilt as a two story enclosed mall with parking garages in the early 1990s. The original Sears store at the mall was replaced by a new building. J C Penney closed its downtown store and opened a store at NorthTown. The Crescent/Frederick & Nelson store became a branch of The Bon Marche in 1993 or 1994. Briefly branded as Bon-Macy's, the store was branded as Macy's in 2005. Sears NorthTown store closed in 2019. Macy's NorthTown store closed in April 2021. Spokane Valley Mall opened in 1997 with The Bon Marche, Sears, and J C Penney. The Spokane Valley Mall J C Penney store replaced the store at University City. The Bon Marche store is now Macy's. Sears closed in 2020.

The downtown Spokane Macy's closed in 2016, 102 years after the building first opened as a department store.

This photograph was taken in July 2003 facing northeast across the intersection of Main and Wall.