Otis Hotel
First and Madison
by Orion Moon


The Otis was an example of the working-class Single Occupancy Room hotels once common in Spokane after the turn of the last century. It was built in 1911 as The Willard Hotel by a Dr. Joseph Gandy, who was one of the city's earliest residents.

In 1921, it became the the Atlantic Hotel, in 1941, it became the Milner, in 1948 became the Earle, and in 1956 became the Otis. In 2006, it became another sad casualty in the last decade's boomtime developers' quest to gentrify much of the last remaining affordable housing in downtown into condominiums. The collapse of the housing market in the intervening years seems to have put the project on hold, leaving our decrepit friend here empty and more than eighty difficult-to-house people at the mercy of the severely strained social services network, many of them homeless.

On a sunnier note, this corner was for years the serving location for Food Not Bombs, which I had the great pleasure of participating in with very good friends. I heard one regular visitor describe it as "the best outdoor cafe in town." That compliment went a long way toward erasing the stain of years of fast food employment, and helping serve food that doesn't slowly kill the customers didn't hurt either. If you walk a short distance from the Otis to Riverside and Madison, you'll pass from Spokane's poorest people's former homes to a spot within shouting distance of the richest people's "Gentlemen's Club."


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