[2] The courthouse was built in 1895 in the French Renaissance revival and Châteauesque styles, and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

The courthouse is situated front and center on a nine square block campus that includes most of the county's offices as well as the Spokane Police Department headquarters.

[3] The nearly nine story central tower rises well above the surrounding buildings on the north bank of the river, and has helped make the courthouse a landmark in Spokane since its construction.

[4] Ground was broken on the site in 1893, on land donated nearly a decade earlier by settler David P. Jenkins, and the courthouse project was envisioned to be a way to help the then nascent city of Spokane recover from the Panic of 1893 financial downturn.

We find the courthouse to be one of the most substantial and well-built offices in this or any other state, and built in accordance with the plans and specifications, excepting changes that were duly authorized.

[6] In 1896, attorney Lou H. Plattor was shot on the building's second floor by Henry Siefert, who claimed to be acting in self-defense.

Webster was charged with first-degree murder, but had significant public support for his clemency, with a petition garnering more than 6,000 signatures, though it would not be granted.

[8] The decorative aspects of the building's facade include cornices, entablatures, festoons and pilasters of the Composite order.

[9] A steep, Mansard-style slate roof tops the main, bulky, H-shaped structure, as well as the central and corner towers.