Talk:Inland Northwest

Untitled
I'm from western Montana and I've never heard the name "Inland Empire". It strikes me as a tourist slogan, can anyone confirm the term's use? Hyacinth 20:12, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

According to Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary, the Inland Empire covers not only Eastern Washington (as the article originally had it) but northern Idaho, northeastern Oregon, and far-western Montana, as well. The far-western Montana and northeastern Oregon bit were news to me, though I always knew about eastern Idaho--but there it is in the dictionary, plus a little Googling did turn up mentions of the other areas. Perhaps it should be specified that only FAR-western Montana is meant.

It's definitely not a tourist slogan, though--I hate those. It's been in use for many years.

--Lukobe 21:20, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I'm a student from MSU and my science work is about Inland Empire. Could someone help me? I've written to Mr.Lukoff who created the map, but no answer received... I'm very interested in the way counties were included. For example it seems strange to me that Missoula and other Montana counties are included cause they're separated by the Bitterroot range. Thank you. --Boardpizza 14:37, 23 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry I never got back to you. I included those Montana counties because of evidence in the geographical dictionary, and Web evidence that some others, at least, considered far western Montana part of the region. Examples: http://www.aahaminlandempire.org/, http://visitmt.com/categories/moreinfo.asp?IDRRecordId=14180&SiteId=1, http://www.betterinvesting.org/chapter/inland/volunteers (these aren't the particular sources I used when I made the map, just ones I just now found on Google). So I picked the far western counties of Montana and the far northeastern ones of Oregon. --Lukobe 21:58, 23 January 2006 (UTC)


 * By the way, shouldn't this be merged with Inland Northwest? --Lukobe 22:02, 23 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much! Well, im trying to define it's modern borders through cities and counties websites research. My investigation is based on your map so it was important to know the source. The other question deals with these terms. Are "Inland Empire" and "Inland Northwest" equal? Or Inland Empire is a kind of relic and Inland NW is just a way to emphasize its contrast to Pacific NW? I may be wrong. Thank you for your time. I hope my english is quite understandable.. --Boardpizza 02:25, 24 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Your English is fine, and better than my Russian! I think the "Inland Empire" and the "Inland Northwest" are the same thing, and that the latter is just a more modern term, to get away from the negative connotations of "empire." (It wouldn't be in contrast to "Pacific Northwest," because Eastern Washington and northeastern Oregon are unquestionably part of the Pacific Northwest, and the Idaho Panhandle is often considered part of the PNW too. --Lukobe 03:49, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Exact boundaries?
I'm curious -- who determined the rather exact boundaries of the region? This is very rare among U.S. regions that include parts of more than one state. Is there some sort of regional commission or board? How did individual counties get included or excluded? If there's a central authority of any sort, it should be included in the article. (What I'm really hoping here is that the exact boundaries were not created by a Wikipedia editor, which would raise a no original research issue.) MCB 00:22, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Out here in the West, we've got things known as "mountain ranges". They're pretty effective at determining boundaries.  Western Washington is considered to run from the Pacific ocean to the Cascade Mountains -- and guess what?  The eastern borders of the counties making up Western Washington run along the ridgeline of the Cascades.  The Inland Northwest is usually considered to be bounded by the Cascade Mountains in Washington and the Bitterroot Mountains separating Idaho and Montana.  Since the county borders also follow these lines, it's possible to have very precise borders on a map. --Carnildo 20:13, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Source?
Does anybody know the source/meaning of the name? It's rather confusing to me, who's never been out there. --Dd42 17:59, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

I would like some information on this as well. Why is it called this? Who decided what counties were included?Kiaparowits 20:05, 22 October 2005 (UTC)


 * See discussion below, "Inland Empire investigation" for detailed response, but look up "Empire Builder" Jim Hill.

His railways opened up & connected his rich "Inland Empire" here (a.k.a. the Inland NW) with the rest of the nation in the 19th century.

Amtrak's "Empire Builder" line still runs through the region partially along the route of his railways.

The title "Inland Empire" was in no small part due to the vast natural resources in the region that in turn spawned several economic empires & helped create several titans of commerce that would rival even Morgan, Cargenie & the Vanderbilt's.

In fact, some of the biggest winners of the mining lottery (see Silver Valley, ID) would later summer in Newport & tour Europe with the most influential & wealthiest families of the day, as well as hobnob & even marry into royalty in a couple cases (hence a couple of the blue-blood power-families that still call the region home & still wield more political influence behind closed doors than should ever be tolerated or permitted in a healthy democracy... but that's best left for another article=). With wealth also comes crime and Spokane also 'boasted' among other things, a speakeasy owned & operated for a time by none other than Bugsy Malone (drawn by the money to be had & a love interest here at the time) who would later go on to bigger & better things including establishing a certain (in)famous city in NV.

The amount of wealth (legal & illicit) that was extracted and passed through the region's unofficial capital (Spokane) was so great that the afterglow remains to this day: the large & impressive castle-like courthouse overlooking the city of Spokane, based on several French and German castles; the "skyscrapers"(of the day)-monuments to wealth from the mining era still looking down on the downtown area, one even capped with an extravagant stair-step villa based on a European villa recreated using nearly all imported materials of the finest quality for its royal residents here.

The wealth was so significant it created a boomtown that never busted and instead developed into basically a self sustaining economy, continued to grow long after the mines closed, trees were gone, and the flour & lumber mills went by way of.

For those actually from here, the region is the "Inland Empire" with "Inland Northwest" being politely tolerated but usually used only by newcomers &/or those trying to be politically correct (or not confuse Californian transplants who may associate it with their more recently christened "Inland Empire" in their central valley).

People from the Inland Empire generally do not usually associate ourselves with "Pacific Northwest", least of all "Pacific Inland Northwest" since Pacific NW is VERY closely associated with just the coast (west of the Cascades) & coastal living.

This is an entirely different world this side (east) of the Cascades with respect to climate and culture alike (in fact it'd be hard to find climates so vastly different, not to mention a fairly tree-hugging, liberal westside politically dominating a generally very conservative eastern 2/3rds of the state), all resulting in a mild tension between the two unequal parts of the state. The coast/westsiders tend to be generally ambivalent at best towards the eastern 2/3rds of the state & the eastern 2/3rds often feel its regarded as little more than a source of tax funds, but otherwise ignored if not outright disregarded by those on the other side of the Cascade Range. This tension doesn't run all that deep, but is a very real tension that exists.

The "Inland Northwest" for many born & raised here is a separate & distinct region & culture from anything to do with "Pacific Northwest". It would be analogous to some outsider calling Montana part of the Pacific NW - yeah from the perspective of NYC or Boston it's in the NW corner of the country, but for those from Montana I know they regard it to be firmly a Mountain State with strong pioneering roots still just under the surface (but I'll leave that to a Montanan to confirm). I mean in all my life, I've never once heard any part of Montana called a part of the "Inland Empire" or even "Inland Northwest". I mean yeah, they get Spokane news programs and Spokane news used to always talk "Inland Empire" (until the recent Californian invasion resulted in the sudden shift to "Inland Northwest" - money corrupts all after all & can buy anything even forced name changes, but I digress).

Bottom-line, this article needs a lot of work as it doesn't do the region justice. InlandEmpireNative 05:39, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Distinctions?
Is there even a vague theme distinguishing the Inland Empire from surrounding regions? Lonestarnot 20:11, 11 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Culturally, the Inland Empire/Inland Northwest is those parts of the US for which Spokane is the biggest city in the area. In terms of industry, agriculture and mining are big.  In terms of climate, it's the semi-desert areas in the rainshadow of the Cascade Mountains.
 * Of course, I don't have references for any of this. --Carnildo 20:23, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Of course, I don't have references for any of this. --Carnildo 20:23, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Inland Empire investigation
Hey everybody. I'm the student of Moscow State University (Department of foreign countries), Russia, and my sience work is tightly connected with Inland Empire region. The main target is to define its borders nowadays. I try to define it through internet sites research. So i'm really intersted in the region. Could you please (citizens of Washington, Idaho, Montana and Oregon) tell me some facts about it? Is the term "Inland Empire" widely used? Do you think you're living in it? Is the term "Inland Empire" means the same thing as "Inland Northwest"? Any kind of information would be very valuable for me! Thank you. Simon Freydlin --Boardpizza 14:19, 23 January 2006 (UTC) P.S. Feel free to write me on this theme: boardpizza@mail.ru


 * The "Inland Empire" or "Inland Northwest" doesn't really have well-defined boundaries. It's basically the part of the United States that has the city of Spokane as the cultural and economic center.  The western boundary area is traditionally considered to be the Cascade Mountains, and the northern boundary is the Canadian border.  The eastern and southern boundaries aren't as well-defined, and people in Yakima and the Tri-Cities area don't always agree that they're part of the Inland Northwest.


 * As for the difference between "Inland Empire" and "Inland Northwest", "Inland Empire" is an older term, and is used mostly when someone wants to create a feeling of greater importance or refer to some time in the past, while "Inland Northwest" is used the rest of the time. --Carnildo 05:26, 24 January 2006 (UTC)


 * The Inland Empire is connotative of the geographic region under control by capitalist interests centered in Spokane in the late 19th and first half of the 20th century. Local railroad magnates like D.C Corbin and Jay P. Graves also had interests in mining and hydro power and used Spokane as their center of operations. Mountain ranges or rivers were not the boundaries of this region, rather, it was a function of a place's economic ties to Spokane that drove the region's definition. In fact, southern portions of British Columbia were arguably part of the Inland Empire, as they were the reach of these early capitalist. William Cowles, whose family still owns the Spokesman-Review and the NBC affiliates in Spokane and the Tri-Cities, is also an important character in the Inland Empire. For those researchers out there, a good book to read would be the "News for an empire; the story of the Spokesman-review of Spokane, Washington, and of the field it serves." By Ralph E. Dyar, 1952. It reads somewhat like propaganda for the Inland Empire, but it provides historical insight into how the capitalist interests in the region guided growth and development as well as big federal dollars to the arid Columbia Basin. As noted above, parts of the Columbia Basin and Western Montana do not consider themselves part of this Inland Empire anymore. This is the consequence of substantial population growth and greater independence in news media and economic development influences over the past 50 years. One might argue that the Inland Empire has been shrinking since the the construction of Hanford with the emergence of the Tri-Cities as an independent economic region. The Inland Empire these days is probably shrunk to match the newspaper market of the Spokesman-Review as shown in this map: http://www.nwnn.com/dmaspok.html. I would suggest that Inland Empire be separate from Inland Northwest, since Inland Northwest is a new marketing scheme that seeks to divorce itself from old capitalist interest and focuses more on the geographic region.--Multimodalman 09:06, 27 March 2006 (PDT)

There's a bunch of historical and geographical info on the term Inland Empire in the book The Great Columbia Plain by D.W. Meinig. Some brief paraphrasing from there: Before the 1880s, Walla Walla was the focus of the inland region, the first area where wheat farming boomed, with relatively workable export transportation down the Columbia River. In the 1880s and 1890s, wheat farming spread and boomed in the Palouse region and Big Bend Country, while railroads appeared on the scene and quickly proliferated. These changes led to Spokane undergoing rapid growth and development. As a railroad hub, the city became the central node for not only the wheat regions but also the mining districts of Coeur d'Alene, the Kootenay region in Canada, and various other mining boom areas in Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia. Additionally, the timber of the Idaho panhandle was logged and routed through Spokane. The wheat regions were very short on lumber. The newspaper Spokane Falls Review wrote in 1883 of a "new" region, which Spokane would dominate, "known and suggestively spoken of as the Inland Empire." By 1890, it was not just a dream, and Spokane grew to the largest city within hundreds and hundreds of miles, east of the Cascades. The Spokane newspapers published news about "tributary cities". The common claim, made mainly by Spokane interests, was that the Inland Empire reached west to the Cascades and south to the Blue Mountains, north to the mining districts of Canada, and east to the mines of Montana. But not all of this region was wholly dominated by Spokane. To the east, the Bitterroot Mountains were a major barrier and the Montana mines beyond them had ties to Minneapolis and St Louis. While Spokane did dominate the Palouse and Big Bend regions, the Walla Walla Valley retained a degree of independence via its old trade links straight to Portland. The Lewiston and Camas Prairie districts of Idaho were also not wholly dominated. To the west, cities like Wenatchee had better links to Seattle than to Spokane, and the western parts of Big Bend Country, like the Waterville Plateau, had ties to Wenatchee at least as strong as those to Spokane. The Tri-Cities were also not wholly dominated, and in time grew to rival Spokane in some ways.

An interesting related issue is the attempt to great the new state of Lincoln, which came relatively close to actually happening, and was apparently more or less the same as the Inland Empire. Pfly 21:24, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

''

"..."Inland Empire" is an older term, and is used mostly when someone wants to create a feeling of greater importance or refer to some time in the past, while "Inland Northwest" is used the rest of the time"

This statement is as false as it is derogatory and patronizing. Our region's name of "Inland Empire" alludes to the railway man Jim Hill, widely known as the "Empire Builder" (see Amtrak: their line through the region is still officially called "Empire Builder" in his honor), as well as to this land rich in natural resources that his railways opened up & connected with the rest of our nation & the world. (*NOTE: the old "Hillyard" town, now a neighborhood in NE Spokane, is even directly named in honor of Mr. Hill).

Until the Empire Builder's railways came, the region was for all intents & purposes cut off with no navigable rivers to traverse out to the world (with multiple impassible falls on the Spokane R. & the great cataracts of the Columbia) and was walled in with mountain passes to the east (through the Rockies) and to the west (over the Cascades) that to this day still often close in winter.

"Inland Empire" also refers to the vast wealth that was extracted from this region & the many vast fortunes made & lost here (see "Silver Valley" for example). It's no coincidence that the largest theater stage east of the Mississippi was located in Spokane, or that Spokane boasted its own stock exchange for many years and the fact that every President since FDR that visits the NW also stops in the Inland Empire: Spokane has always been the unofficial capital of this region (and it doesn't hurt that several powerful 'old money' families, including at least one set of very wealthy, well-connected & powerful blue-bloods descended of European royalty, still calls the region home).

Spokane remains the largest city & center of commerce between Seattle & Minneapolis and is the 2nd largest city in the State of Washington, second only to Seattle. A desire to "create a feeling of greater importance" might be appropriately directed at the 2 upstart "Inland Empires", but not the Spokane/CDA region.

In fact, the glaring omission of any reference to the Empire Builder, Jim Hill, in this Inland Empire article needs to be remedied ASAP - the article is not complete without an accurate discussion of where the term "Inland Empire" came from (*possibly avoiding further ignorant comments as quoted above).

Clarification on geography: the region stretching from the peaks of the Cascades in the west, to the border with Canada in the North, the banks of the Columbia & Snake Rivers to the South (*NOT including the Blues & Wallowa country in NE Oregon, as currently depicted incorrectly in this article), and to the foothills of the Rockies to the west (not extending into Montana) was called the "Inland Empire" since before the territory even became a State in the 19th century and the region is still commonly referred to as such by people from here/born & raised here, for no other reason than the fact that's what the region is called.

A recent mass immigration of historic proportions by 10s of thousands (millions?) of people from other regions (largely from California) in the past 5-10 years has no doubt contributed to the phenomenon of newcomers & a mainly non-native media attempting to rename several areas throughout the region (to no small annoyance for people from here).

Recent immigrants from California no doubt associate "Inland Empire" to an area of their central valley in CA, which was only recently named this (circa 1950s). However, the lions share of the blame for this rampant re-naming campaign in the region can't really be pinned on recent arrivals/newcomers.

The Spokane City Council & Chamber of Commerce have been aggressively advertising our region ("Near Nature, Near Perfect" campaign, for example) throughout California, the Southwest & Texas (possibly further afield) attempting to entice more taxpayers & businesses to flock here for obvious economic ambitions.

These marketing campaigns avoid any reference to our historic "Inland Empire" title, no doubt to avoid confusion among the target demographic (Californians) with the "other" upstart "Inland Empire" in CA.

Also, please note: the reason that Montanan's have written above in confusion at them being included as part of the Inland Empire as far east as Missoula (?!) is the simple fact that they aren't and never have been a part of the Inland Empire & represent a separate and very distinct region of their own. This may be another case of revisionism or hopefully just a lack of intimate knowledge of the region & its history. The Inland Empire region never included Montana, ending at/before the mountain passes at the border of ID/MT.

In short, Inland Empire = Eastern WA & N. Idaho ONLY. Not Oregon, not Montana or anywhere else. Please revise this article & its map to accurately reflect & respect this local tradition & history. Thank you. InlandEmpireNative —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.165.188.200 (talk) 04:40, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Got no comments on that, though I did add the MT and OR WikiProjects, given the current content/map. But I did want to comment re:
 * ''A recent mass immigration of historic proportions by 10s of thousands (millions?) of people from other regions (largely from California) in the past 5-10 years has no doubt contributed to the phenomenon of newcomers & a mainly non-native media attempting to rename several areas throughout the region (to no small annoyance for people from here).

This is very similar to what's gone on in BC in recent times, notably the rebranding of the Kootenay region of BC as "the Kootenay Rockies", though not all such rebrandings are "immigrant" based, but rather new-era concoctions like Salish Sea and Great Bear Rainforest where a political agenda, fired up by a quasi-visionary desire to change the world by doing away with historical names; similarly there are new British Columbians who get all hot under the collar that BC isn't in the Pacific Northwest, supposedly, because that's supposedly an American designation. We've even had people complain about the "British" in the province's name....anyway, other examples abound, just commenting re parallel situation north of the border; btw the Boundary Country and West Kootenay/Slocan areas are historically tied into the Inland Empire and Spokane's position as economic capital of same, though the term was never applied north of the border; and thte Boundary Country, formerly the most dynamic and populated part of the area and now underpopulated, has been variously rebranded as being either part of the Okanagan or of the West Kootenay even though it was settled and industrialized before either of the other two.....Skookum1 (talk) 14:31, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * This article really needs to be renamed back to "Inland Empire (Northwest)". How is that done? Note that the article "Inland Empire (California)" is correctly named, while this one is not.Wikiphoto 2010 (talk) 06:10, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Purpose?
What is the purpose or reasoning of this article? I've never heard of the Inland Empire, and wonder why this is even here. The only thing I can find on the PNW Inland Empire is a history book. Ryoga-2003 (talk) 02:32, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Where are you from? I'm not surprised if you haven't heard of it if you're not from around the Pacific Northwest. --76.104.196.236 (talk) 07:41, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

The poulation estimate as well as the boundaries don't seem to be referenced and can only surmise that it was calculated with original research. Ill come back in a couple days and remove the population at the very least. Have a nice day and no, I'm not gonna get an account.

What's the purpose of listing information on any regions, anywhere? To tell of that region's unique history and cultural contributions to a larger society. The true "Inland Empire" of E. Washington & N. Idaho is a regional name going back to the mid to late 1800s, only recently also taken by a region in S. California and possible elsewhere. However, because you've never heard of it does not make it less valid or less important than that of any other region of our nation or others. Also, as shown by numerous references easily found online and in published books, the region is and always has been known as the "Inland Empire" with a storied history and culture distinctly all its own. Again, lack of regional knowledge or respect for regional history and flavor, with all due respect, does not equate historical/cultural fact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.90.204.68 (talk) 01:07, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

why it is "Inland Empire"
Research Theodore Wilcox and the Portland Flouring Mills Company. The development of Pacific rim trade. He made an "Inland Empire" of wheat production out of the inland region able to grow dryland wheat encompassing northeastern Oregon, eastern Washington and Northern Idaho in the early 20th century to feed this trade by driving the local community flour mills out of business and creating a captive market. The name stuck. 66.119.193.155 (talk) 21:42, 30 August 2016 (UTC)Larry the Goat

Single Source: "Census Bureau" Out Of Touch With Reality
Just calling it like it is. I'm sure the Census Bureau is fine at counting people, but as the apparent sole justification for everything on this page, I'm not convinced that this is a worthwhile super-region to even speak of. Nobody's seen fit to bolster this article with additional scholarship in two years since the warning was added in 2019, and as a long-time Yakima resident I don't feel that we have anything in common with Spokane, the supposed regional hub, at all. Our local news media have been consolidated in the Tri-Cities: Richland, Pasco & Kennewick. It might look like the same sort of place to the government paper-pushers in DC and I suppose it must look like the center of the universe to anyplace within an hour's drive of them, but Spokane may as well be Chicago for all anyone here gives a care. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:6C54:4500:4C1:65B6:AA79:1785:94BA (talk) 06:38, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Inland Northwest
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Inland Northwest's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Fox": From Spokane, Washington:  From History of Spokane, Washington:  From Polynesia:  

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 08:42, 17 October 2022 (UTC)