Spokane’s Historic Preservation Society is seeking added protections for the Baum House, which originally belonged to some of the earliest Jewish settlers in Spokane.
Isaac and Tillie Baum built their house on Pacific Avenue in Browne’s Addition in 1889. That was just a few years after the first German Jewish immigrants came to Spokane.
Spokane Historic Preservation Officer Megan Duvall presented to City Council this week to show why the Baum house should be added to Spokane’s Register of Historic Places.
“Isaac Baum was part of this early group," she said. "His wife Tillie Oppenheimer Baum, along with her sister, are recognized as the first Jewish women to settle in Spokane.”
In addition to commissioning her own home, Tillie Baum also developed the Avenida apartments in Browne’s Addition. She and her husband eventually moved into those apartments when they sold their home on Pacific Avenue in 1911.
Tillie was an active member of multiple societies in Spokane, and the Baums helped establish Temple Emanu-El in 1892.
The temple was dedicated on September 11, just four days before Seattle’s Ohaveth Sholum. That made Temple Emanu-El the first synagogue in Washington state.
The Reform congregation met on 3rd Avenue and Madison Street for more than three decades. It then moved to a larger brick building on 8th Avenue and Walnut Street.
In 1969, it combined with Keneseth Israel Temple and built Temple Beth Shalom on 30th Avenue and Perry Street. Plymouth Congregational Church now meets in the building on 8th and Walnut.
Both the Baum House and Temple Emanu-El were designed by architect Herman Preusse, another German immigrant who went on to build St. Aloysius and Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic churches.
City Council will likely approve the house’s addition to the historic registry early next year.
