Spokane is known as “The Lilac City” and every spring the heavy smell of Lilacs fills the air as hundreds of lilacs bloom across Spokane. This page was drawn at The Lilac Garden in Manito Park.

The Maxwell House building was built in 1905 as a grocery store and a plumbing company and is now a tavern and restaurant. It holds the oldest legal liquor license in Spokane Washington and constantly fights with the coffee company in a Google search. Across the street from the Girl Scout headquarters, I drew this during The Cookie Rally.

Originally constructed as part of the Great Northern Railroad Depot in 1892 (completion in 1902) on Havermale Island along the Spokane River, it is the only remaining landmark from the no longer standing depot. A reminder of our railroad past, The Clocktower is one of Spokane’s most iconic landmarks.

Railroad Alley is seemingly appropriately named. A small alleyway that runs alongside the downtown tracks going from Washington over to Adams, the buildings that line it were once home to many of the factories and machine shops that serviced the railroad.

This beautiful little theater opened in 1945 and sits on the corner of Garland and Monroe as the crowning jewel of The Garland District. The Garland Theatre operates as a discount theatre and going to a movie here is one of our favorite cold-weather activities.

When I moved to Spokane at the end of 2020 I spent a lot of time walking around Manito park and the surrounding area just trying to find inspiration. At the corner of W 18th and Division used to sit a lovely two-story white house with a fun old yellow truck in the driveway. A few days after I finally sat down and drew the house, we had a massive wind storm and the pine tree, just to the right, fell and crushed the house and the car.

Built in 1909 by Charles I. D. Looff as a gift for Looff's daughter Emma Vogel and her husband Louis Vogel. Charles Looff was the innovator behind the Coney Island style of carnival ride carvings and even built Santa Monica Pier. My favorite horse is the one on the left.

When the earth warms up and the spring is in full force, bright yellow flowers with huge sage-colored leaves fill the hillsides. These flowers are named “Arrow Leaf Balsam Root” and are the happiest flowers to walk through on a warm spring hike.

I want to take a moment to say thank you to every resident (and former resident) of Spokane that encouraged me to make this coloring book. It took one year, one month, and 19 days to complete and I am truly grateful for this opportunity. Thank you.

Most Spokanites know that the movie “Benny and Joon” was filmed in Spokane and when I asked locals about locations they wanted to see in the book almost everyone requested Benny and Joon’s House. Peaceful Valley is the place I love most in Spokane so this location seemed fitting.

With a gravity-defying sign, The Moezy Inn is one of the coolest taverns in Spokane. Built in 1901 as a blacksmith shop originally, it is now home to a healthy selection of beers and interesting characters.

A sponsor of the Spokane Coloring Book and the winner of Spokane’s Best Arcade in 2022, we love going here and spending all of our money. It’s fantastically fun and they have the best prizes.

My favorite place to visit in Manito Park, Duncan Garden gets a new outfit every spring. Gardeners come and help to design and plant the new flowers in the planters and we all get to watch the colors come to life throughout the spring and summer months.

When we moved to Spokane we lived in an apartment up the street from this delightful ice cream shop in West Central. Built in 1940 and serving “home made ice cream;” my daughter loves it most because they have strawberry ice cream without “the chunks.”

When European settlers came to Spokane they needed a way to cross the falls and river so they built a bridge. This version of that bridge, The Monroe Street Bridge, was built in 1911.

Avista was a sponsor of the Spokane Coloring Book and requested that the Post Street Substation building be included. This iconic red brick building sitting atop Spokane Falls used to power Spokane’s cable car network and is now the home to our children’s science museum, Mobius.

Another Sponsor of this project, The General Store is one of the places I frequent and I know I’m not the only one. A wintertime haven and Spokane staple since 1945.

One afternoon I was walking through South Perry with my family when I saw this wonderful Auto shop turned coffee shop and just wanted to draw it… and then turkeys walked by.

I am a sucker for a house being eaten by greenery and this South Hill brick beauty was no exception.

This page was created in dedication to the O’Doherty family. Located downtown just across from the Riverfront Park, this pub and the family it’s named for are a true blessing to the city of Spokane.

As you drive up through Green Bluff you’ll likely pass The Mel Walker Ranch. Mel and Bonny Walker are the grandparents to Sabrina, the owner of Greenbluff Fresh Catering Company. On the front you’ll see two bent over rear ends, it is their arses depicted on the barn. It was common to see The Walkers bent over in the field working so the rears were incorporated onto the barn. Sabrina’s kids are 6th generation to live on this farm which was homesteaded by her great-great grandfather, Ludwig Beck (Mel's Grandpa).

The second most requested location for the book was Garbage Goat but LEGALLY I was not able to include that piece of art because it is already someone else’s art. So the third most requested was Mary Lou’s Milk Bottle. Originally a retail outlet for the Benewah Creamery it is now home to the world’s best ice cream flavor, River City Sludge (we fight about ice cream a lot in our family).

Built in 1891 this building stands imposingly at the awkward corner of West Riverside and Monroe. Its glowing color is due to its terra-cotta facade which gives the building a very stern but romantic look to it. Whenever I pass by I am compelled to stare at it and every so often if I look in the window of the apartment at the top, something will be staring back at me.

It’s a restaurant, it’s a machine shop, it’s a restaurant machine shop. Still owned by the same family all these years later, Crescent Machine works started off as an auto repair shop and now repairs most of Spokane’s restaurant equipment. Also Hoopfest!

The Nishinomiya Tsutakawa Japanese Garden was completed in 1974 and symbolizes the friendship of Spokane and its sister city, Nishinomiya, Japan. Nestled in a small pocket of Manito Park, it truly shines in the fall when all the leaves change color.

Look friends, I was born in 1982, and Benny and Joon was, like, the movie of my early teens. And also, eating in a train restaurant is really fun plus their breakfast is delicious. You Betcha!

One of the first faux pas’ I made moving here was to post a photo I took of Dick’s with the caption “Burgers by the bagful” and boy was that a mistake. Originally built in 1954 (the year my parents were born), it became a Dick’s in 1967. The original name was “Panda Self Service Drive-In” hence the fun but seemingly random mascot on their sign.

Before Europeans came to Spokane and settled in the area, the Spokane river used to overflow with Chinook Salmon. There used to be enough salmon in our river to feed entire tribes for the coming year. Salmon were fished using a fish weir made from the trees lining the river and dried on racks made from the same locally sourced branches. Hundreds of salmon would be pulled from the river (alongside the local animals also looking for the same nourishment), filleted, and dried using the wind. The fish, eel, and crawdad taken from the river would be enough to feed all levels of life using a sustainable system of respect and partnership with the earth. One day the new settlers that came to the area overfished these waters and then damned up the rivers preventing the remaining salmon from reaching the river. Spokane river once contained so many fish you couldn’t see the rocks on the bottom. But today, due to the impact of overfishing and damming, there are no Salmon left in our beautiful river. This page was created as a dedication to the indigenous people of Spokane. A people that once respectfully fished and lived on this land for thousands of generations.