The Early History of the Spokane Bar Association

By Dale Raugust

The Spokane County Courthouse was officially opened for business on November 20, 1895. That same year, on May 13, 1895, the first official meeting of the Spokane County Bar Association was held. Forty-four attorneys attended the meeting. They elected Cyrus happy as their first president. Also in attendance were many of the attorneys that I have written about in these articles, including W.M. Ridpath, George M. Forster, W. J. C. Wakefield, and W. W. D. Turner. The organization did not hold regular meetings but did establish in 1905, a county bar library for the mutual benefit of the members.

Spokane attorneys were also active on a national level. In 1901, Frank Post, an early Spokane pioneer attorney for who Post street and Post Falls were named, was elected as a delegate to the national convention of the American Bar Association, but was replaced at the last minute by George Forester of the law firm Forster and Wakefield, because of a death in Post’s family. On August 24, 1901 George Forster was elected Vice President of the American Bar Association.

Meanwhile, a rival organization had been formed called the Associated Bar of the City of Spokane. On December 5, 1909, attorneys of the two bar associations met in Judge J. D. Hinkle’s courtroom and decided to merge into one large association to be known as the Spokane Bar Association. The attorneys present at the meeting unanimously adopted the merger plan and set the initial fees at $5.00 a year with an entrance fee of $10.00. An election was held for officers and Frank Post was elected the first president of the Spokane Bar Association. The SCBA had, the previous year in 1908, formed a legal entity for their association, and the merged organization eventually took over the corporate entity, and over time the official new name, Spokane Bar Association, became Spokane County Bar Association. This is why Spokane attorneys have declared the year 2008 as the 100th anniversary of the SCBA, when several other years have perhaps a better claim to the honor. 1995 was the one hundredth anniversary of the first meeting; 2009 will be the one hundredth anniversary of the merger, and Frank Post served as the first president one hundred years prior to 2010.

Frank Post agreed to become the first president on the condition that the organization held regular weekly meetings, with a definite agenda for each meeting. 1910 is therefore the real birth date for the SCBA and Frank Post its first father. Other well known early presidents include Wakefield in 1911, two time president, W. W. Zent in 1916 and 1917, Philip Brook in 1934, William Kelly in 1940, Del Cary Smith, Jr. in 1942, Herbert Hamblen in 1943, William Ennis in 1949 and Willard Roe in 1958.