Just outside the Davenport Hotel’s Marie Antoinette Ballroom hangs a photograph of the first formal party thrown there, at the Spokane hotel’s grand opening more than a century ago. The ornate ballroom, its chandeliers (which cost $10,000 each — in 1914) asparkle, is crammed full of elegantly dressed Spokaneites, with scarcely room to breathe between them, let alone to fox trot. Some beam with excitement; others look apprehensively at the camera; one man grimaces, as if his high collar might be a bit tight.
None of them, surely, could have imagined that 100 years later, curious visitors to Spokane would be gazing at that photograph; let alone using smartphones to take pictures of the ballroom, and sipping Starbucks in the lobby while happily soaking up the atmosphere. Each of those people is part of the Davenport’s story — and, for a quick and lovely weekend last month, a friend and I were, too.
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