Institution

The Breslford WSU Visitor Center serves as a
welcoming center for Washington State University. Often affectionately referred
to as “Wazzu” from its acronym WSU, it was founded in 1890 as a land-grant
college and a three-member committee selected Pullman as its location on April
27, 1891, thrilling the community’s residents.1 Construction soon began on
the&nbsp; first building, a one-story red
brick building perched on a hill. 

The
Agricultural College, Experiment Station and School of Science of the State of
Washington opened on January 13, 1892, with 59 students enrolled. The campus
developed over the next decade. The four-story Administration Building (now
called Thompson Hall) is the oldest building on campus, constructed in 1894.2

The
school was renamed the State College of Washington in 1905, and by 1915 was
officially Washington State College (WSC). The college grew significantly after
the end of World War II as veterans returned from overseas and took advantage
of the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, which guaranteed them free
tuition and a monthly living allowance while in college. In 1959, WSC became a
full-fledged university, with the Washington State Legislature passing a bill
to change the school’s name to Washington State University.

View of the "WSU" letters at the visitor center, taken February 2018.

View of the visitor center, taken February 2018.

"Washington State University, Part 1" essay on HistoryLink.org

More Info

"Washington State University, Part 2" essay on HistoryLink.org

Fifteen-foot-tall concrete letters reading "WSU" and a steel-plate tower establish the western entrance to the university and serve as highly-visible icons to drivers traveling along State Route 270. Designed by Seattle-based Olson Kundig Architects, visitors will discover a light-filled, modular space that showcases materials developed at the WSU Composite Materials and Engineering Center and interactive displays that celebrate the research accomplishments and entrepreneurial spirit of faculty, students, staff, and alumni. The center's design-build team featured graduates from the WSU School of Design and Construction.

Brelsford WSU Visitor Center

This is the route of the 2018 walking tour, from July 27, 2018. Follow and enjoy!

This structure has symbolized the city's respect for men who have died in the nation's recent wars since its dedication on May 30, 1950 (Memorial Day). &nbsp;The sense of history was made clear by the dedication address delivered by Charles Homer Johnson, a World War I veteran who had been commander of the National Guard Company E, 161st Infantry until his retirement. &nbsp;The community donated about $1,000 for its construction, various businesses donated materials, and several community members donated time in the course of building and installing the memorial. &nbsp;It has stood since 1950 as the single most important war memorial in the city. The memorial was probably built in about 1920. &nbsp;Local records reveal nothing about the memorial until its dedication in 1950 at which time people who had lived in the city for many years said that it had been on the spot for a long time. The memorial is included in the City of Pullman's Register of Historic Places.

The structure is a memorial to the residents of Pullman who died in World War I, World War II, the Korean Conflict, and the Viet Nam War.  It is in the shape of an obelisk around twenty feet high.  It has three metal plaques attached to the metal obelisk, the first with an eagle and design along each side with the names of nine dead from World War I and 25 from World War II.  The second plaque, which is smaller, has the name of one person who died in Korea.  The third plaque, of plain design, has the names of four men who died in Viet Nam.  The small memorial grounds include a flag pole flying the national flag.

War Memorial, Pullman, Washington

The Armory building was constructed in the Art
Deco/Art Moderne style as a Public Works Administration (PWA) project. The PWA
was a large-scale public construction agency created as part of the New Deal of
1933. Like other New Deal programs, the PWA provided employment to encourage
the recovery of the American economy in the 1930s. In addition to government
buildings like post offices, the PWA financed the construction of dams,
schools, airports, and hospitals. 

When
the Armory opened, it featured a drill floor, supply room, and arms vault with
showers and a rifle range in the basement. A 161st infantry company
trained at the facility.1

Built in 1938, this three-story concrete and masonry structure provided a training space for local units of the Washington State National Guard, many of which served overseas. The Armory also has served as a center for community activities in Pullman, hosting everything from music performances, comedy acts, athletic events, and yoga. Its austere, stripped-down, symmetrical facade includes an arched, recessed entryway in the manner of a Romanesque church.

State Armory (Washington National Guard Building)

This public space is used for public gatherings and is the location of the city Christmas tree every year.

Pine Street Plaza

In late 1915, the Grand Theater opened
in the newly constructed Jackson Block and entertained residents until closing
in 1928. Remodeled as the Audian Theater in October of 1930 and expanded again
in 1936 following the demolition of an adjoining garage, the several-hundred-seat,
single-screen theater featured the latest movie technology and, together with
the Cordova Theater, served as one of Pullman’s principal movie houses into the
early twenty-first century. Original light fixtures and a balcony distinguish
the extant auditorium.1

At the time of the Audian Theater’s opening in 1930, only two
other theaters were operating in Pullman: the Cordova and the Liberty. Other
theaters came and went over the twentieth century, but with the exception of a
brief closure in the mid-1990s for upgrades,&nbsp;the Audian remained in
operation until the 2000s. Unlike many older, single-screen theaters across the
country which evolved into music venues, community theaters, and other
functions, the Audian always functioned as a movie house.The Audian was updated in the 1990s, but remains largely unchanged from the 1930s. Its architecture and decor are excellent examples of theaters from the golden age of movie theaters. The Audian closed in 2014 but as of this writing, the Pullman Civic Theatre hopes to renovate the building and use it as an arts center.&nbsp;

The Audian Theatre has been part of social fabric of life in Pullman for nearly a century. Built in 1915, this building originally housed Pullman's fifth silent movie house, the Grand Theater. The building was remodeled in 1930, reopening as the Audian Theater in October 1930. 

Audian Theatre

The current building is set on the footprint of a single-story structure that was built in ca. 1890 and housed one of the first banks in Pullman in ca. 1910. The fenestration, entries, storefronts, and overall scale haven't changed, though the building has been extensively renovated.

Old National Bank Site

While some accounts note the Webb Block as
constructed in 1891, it does not appear on Sanborn maps until between the 1893
and 1896 editions. It appears that Henry J. Webb was a prominent citizen of
Pullman; in 1890 he is listed as president and member of the board of directors
for the Bank of Pullman.1&nbsp;In 1896, the building
housed the Pullman Herald as well as
a men’s clothing store, dentistry offices for Dr. A. E. Shaw, and Neill &amp;
Bull, attorneys-at-law.2&nbsp;Other tenants throughout
the years included the City Club and the Combine Mall.The
Combine Mall was a restaurant and coffee shop for many years, during the ’70s, ’80s,
and ’90s. The interior was broken up into smaller shops, organized as its name
implies. During the 1990s, there was event space upstairs which hosted a
variety of performances including concerts from artists like Nirvana,
Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains—before they made it big.3

This building was constructed in ca. 1895 for Dr. Henry J. Webb following the fire of 1890 and-similar to the Mason and Flatiron buildings in the vicinity-represents the historic brick core of Pullman's established downtown in the late nineteenth century. The Webb Block once housed the offices of the Pullman Herald and was a fixture in the early foundation of Pullman. In the last decades of the twentieth century, the building was rechristened as the Combine Mall, the source of still-visible advertising on the structure's west side.

Webb Block

The Pullman Flatiron Building was built in 1904 and designed
by William Swain (1856–1934), a well-known Pullman architect who has several
buildings on the National Register of Historic Places. Swain was born in
England in 1856 and immigrated to the United States at age 18.1&nbsp;He settled in Duluth, Minnesota, and became a successful carpenter before deciding
to study architecture, which launched his long career in the field. Swain married
Penelope Bates, also from England, in Duluth in 1885 and they moved to Pullman
in 1891.2&nbsp;In addition to his work as an architect, Swain also served in public office, as
city clerk, city treasurer, and a justice of the peace.3

The Pullman Flatiron Building was built to fit the city’s
only triangular lot, which faces Main Street. The lot was originally a hitching
spot for horses and wagons and the building was to house the offices of Grain
Companies, Pullman Savings and Loan, and Farmers State Bank. Over the years,
numerous businesses and offices have occupied the building, and there are several
businesses now on the ground floor.&nbsp;

The Flatiron building has survived a number of near-disasters
over the course of its long history. Pullman was flooded in 1910, and though
water came up to the front door, the building was not seriously damaged. There
were other floods in 1948, 1972, and 1979, and the building withstood them all.
The most serious damage occurred in 1994, when a runaway front-end loader
struck the front corner of the building, knocking out roughly one-fourth of the
structure. It was rebuilt using some of the intact bricks salvaged from the
rubble. Aside from the noticeable difference in appearance of the front corner,
the Flatiron Building remains largely as it was built in 1904.

The triangular shape of this 1905 brick building resembles the Flatiron Building in New York City. Pullman's version, a load-bearing masonry structure designed by the local architect William Swain, fans out to meet two street grids overlapping in the city center. The prow of the building, on the southeast comer of Main Street and Grand Avenue, has provided a notable gateway to downtown Pullman for more than a century.

2018 Downtown Historic Walking Tour

Brelsford WSU Visitor Center

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources

Additional Information