Kehoe Building
Address: Corner of Olympic and Market St
Year Built: 1907
Researched and Written by: Erin Roney, Gonzaga StudentIn the heart of Hillyard stands a building that quietly tells the story of Agnes and Thomas Kehoe, a couple whose journey westward in the early 1900s helped shape the character of the neighborhood. Originally from Minneapolis, Thomas Kehoe, an enterprising businessman in the horse and carriage trade, settled in Hillyard in 1903 after securing work with the Great Northern Railroad. His wife Agnes and their daughter Ethel soon joined him, and together they built a life rooted in resilience and civic spirit.
Thomas opened the Hillyard Bar, a saloon that thrived thanks to its proximity to the railroad, surviving even a dramatic armed robbery in 1905. With the saloon’s success, the Kehoes constructed a two-story commercial building at Market and Olympic in 1907, featuring retail space below and eighteen single-room hotel units above. The Kehoe name still crowns the lintel today.
While Thomas briefly served as mayor in the 1920s, it was Agnes who left the deeper political legacy—winning a seat in the Washington State Legislature in 1939 without campaigning, and later earning the Marian Award for her tireless community work. In 1956, her decades of civic leadership were formally recognized when Robert Whitlock, president of the Hillyard Commercial Club, presented her with a certificate of recognition for her many years of service to local civic groups. Known affectionately as “Mrs. Hillyard,” Agnes Kehoe was more than a legislator; she was a force of nature in Spokane’s civic and business spheres throughout the 1900s, embodying the spirit of the neighborhood she helped shape.
Their building adapted through the decades, becoming a hardware store during Prohibition and remaining in family hands into the 1960s. Today, the Kehoe legacy endures not only in brick and mortar, but in the park and housing complex that bear Agnes’s name—fitting tributes to a woman who dedicated her life to public service and the betterment of Hillyard.
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