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The Gonzaga Bulldogs collegiate basketball team competes at the Division I level.
#Mountain spokane weather professional#
In sports, the region's professional and semi-professional sports teams include the Spokane Indians in Minor League Baseball and Spokane Chiefs in junior ice hockey. The city's western suburb of Airway Heights is home to Fairchild Air Force Base as well as two large casino hotels. Gonzaga University was established in 1887 by the Jesuits, and the private Presbyterian Whitworth University was founded three years later and moved to north Spokane in 1914.
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The Spokane Washington Temple in the east of the county serves the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. John the Evangelist serves as that of the Episcopal Diocese of Spokane. The Cathedral of Our Lady of Lourdes is the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane, and the Cathedral of St. The city is also home to the Riverfront and Manito parks, the Smithsonian-affiliated Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture, the Davenport Hotel, and the Fox and Bing Crosby theaters. Many of the downtown area's older Romanesque Revival-style buildings were designed by architect Kirtland Kelsey Cutter after the Great Fire of 1889. Spokane hosted the first environmentally themed World's fair at Expo '74. The local economy depended on mining, timber, and agriculture until the 1980s. In the late 19th century, gold and silver were discovered in the Inland Northwest.
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The same year it was officially incorporated as a city under the name of Spokane Falls (it was re-incorporated under its current name ten years later). Completion of the Northern Pacific Railway in 1881 brought settlers to the Spokane area.
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This trading post was the first long-term European settlement in Washington. David Thompson explored the area with the westward expansion and establishment of the North West Company's Spokane House in 1810. The first people to live in the area, the Spokane tribe (their name meaning "children of the sun" in Salishan), lived off plentiful game. A 2021 estimate sets the population of the Spokane Metropolitan Area at 593,466. At the 2020 census, Spokane's population was 228,989. According to the 2010 census, Spokane had a population of 208,916, making it the second-largest city in Washington, and the 101st-largest city in the United States. The city and the wider Inland Northwest area are served by Spokane International Airport, 5 miles (8 km) west of Downtown Spokane. Officially, Spokane goes by the nickname of Hooptown USA, due to Spokane annually hosting Spokane Hoopfest, the world's largest basketball tournament. It is known as the birthplace of Father's Day, and locally by the nickname of "Lilac City". Spokane is the economic and cultural center of the Spokane metropolitan area, the Spokane–Coeur d'Alene combined statistical area, and the Inland Northwest. It is in eastern Washington, along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, 92 miles (148 km) south of the Canadian border, 18 miles (30 km) west of the Washington– Idaho border, and 279 miles (449 km) east of Seattle, along I-90. Spokane ( / s p oʊ ˈ k æ n/ ( listen) spoh- KAN) is the largest city and county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States.
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