Rebel with a Cause

John R. Downes

Description

A Spokane architect's ever-constant struggles with the Establishment, lawyers, bureaucrats, politicians, educators, activists, and myriad others, exhibits his bulldog nature, talent, and vision of the future he needed to weather the storms and overcome.

Sujets

• Histoire
• C. Robert Cloninger
• Biography
• Military
• History
• Life

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris US
• Date de parution: 20 mars 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669867579
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

ALSO BY JOHN R. DOWNES
 
FICTION
 
A Few Deadly Fri ends
Orphans Song
The Brother & Sister Act
The Dissonant S pies
The Blackjack List
The Enchanted Pipe
Two Came Run ning
The Scene Menag erie
Tales From Downes Town
 
NON-FICTION
 
How to Be Irresistible Through the Power of Persua sion
 
NonConfrontation Selling … the One-on-One Revolu tion
 
Try Not to Think of an Or ange
 
The Treasure of the Neighborhoods – Spokane Alters its Political Base
 
When Johnny Came Marc hing
Rebel With A Cause
 
The Biography of Glen Cloninger
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
John R. Downes
 
Copyright © 2023 by John R. Downes.
 
Library of Congress Control Number:
2023905026
ISBN:
Hardcover
978-1-6698-6759-3

Softcover
978-1-6698-6758-6

eBook
978-1-6698-6757-9
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
 
Cover photo: Grapetree Village
Photographer: John R. Downes
 
Author may be contacted at: [e-mail] .
 
 
 
 
 
Rev. date: 03/20/2023
 
 
 
 
 
Xlibris
844-714-8691
www.Xlibris.com
850122
CONTENTS
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Author’s note
DEDICATION
Montana State Univer sity
 
The State of Washington Supreme C ourt
 
Spokane Mayor Mary Ve rner
 
Artists must be sacrificed to their art.
Like bees, they must put their l ives
into the sting they give.
--EMERSON
 
 
Nothing can exist without a c ause.
--VOLTAIRE
CHAPTER ONE
S hortly after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, and later, following the wide acceptance of the general notion of Manifest Destiny , a migration of settlers caused encampments and townships to spring up all over the Western regions of the North American continent. “ From sea to shining sea” was the political refrain. “ Oregon or Bust”, a popular wagon train graffiti, was often misspelled as Or ygun .
Settlements were erected alongside rivers for practical reasons: water, food, growing crops, raising livestock, personal hygiene. None of the conveniences of the twentieth century, such as automobiles and trains, were available – only teamster wagons and horseback. Railroads would follow after 1872. Why wouldn’t they? Congress awarded them over 170 million acres in land grants, under provisions of the Pacific Railroad Act , in exchange for their providing accessibility Westward to the Pacific Ocean. That meant the laying of thousands of miles of tracks, and building depots and water towers along the way.
The Northern route followed the river through Spokan Falls ( later changed to Spokane) , and provided transportation to the region for a constant influx of homesteaders, gold-seekers, and merchants to serve the throngs.
Wooden structures of all types: mercantiles, lodging facilities, eating and drinking establishments, brothels, blacksmith shops, even churches and funeral homes, lasted about one generation. Crude construction utilized rough-hewn timbers and planks, ofttimes put up by apprentice carpenters and untrained laborers. The first buildings within view of the river were small and short, although facades made them appear bigger. The adjacent dirt road became Trent Avenue.
Then came the second generation. Buildings were taller, better constructed, some had elevators. Brick and mortar, electricity, and skilled labor were prevalent, and in common usage. That became the look of Main Avenue, two city blocks from the river.
Successive generations created better-crafted and taller buildings; hence, Riverside Avenue, then Sprague Avenue, three and four blocks away from the river, showed evolutionary improvement in design, construction, height, and quality. Meanwhile, replacements for the initial structures on the Trent Avenue blocks deteriorated.
The City of Spokane certainly did not have exclusivity of what was called Architectural Obsolescence . Such was the evolution of Seattle, Portland, Sacramento, Denver; and even smaller towns such as Pendleton, Missoula, Helena, LaGrande, Twin Falls, and Eugene, river cities all.
*       *       *
July 28, 1944
Unseasonal summer rain, accompanied by gusts of wind, poured unabated on Spokane, Washington. For three days, only the hardiest or destitute remained outside. Empty buses slogged through the rising pools, as merchants up and down the city center’s Main, Riverside, and Sprague Avenues peered outwardly through showroom windows, yearning for a shopper.
Dozens of sailors stood and sat amidst civilian travelers inside the Milwaukee Road Railroad depot on Trent Avenue awaiting the Westbound passenger train. They’d just graduated from the Farragut Naval Training Center beside Pend Oreille Lake, Idaho, been bussed sixty miles to Spokane, having been prepared to face the perils and uncertainties of wartime military duty in disparate shipboard assignments. World War II had been raging since 1941, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Dreariness outside the building revealed a spiderwork of steel girders supporting unpainted and graffiti-stained railroad trestles, the city’s most prominent feature. The ugly monoliths extended east to west, by sight, into infinity. Less than two hundred yards away, beside the Spokane River on Havermale Island, a second depot, the Great Northern, with its looming clock tower, utilized entirely separate tracks for different destinations. Four train companies operated through Spokane’s city center.
Across Trent Avenue, a plethora of structures housed seedy bars, pool halls, laundries, food markets, pawn shops, barbers, hotels, and ethnic restaurants. Alleys and sidewalks were inhabited by drunks, pimps, prostitutes, and hobos. Some umbrellas offered protection from the rain, but the unprepared cowered under cardboard boxes, or loitered in the shadows.
Seemingly, far removed from the blighted area, Sacred Heart hospital occupied a tree-shaded hillside twelve blocks distant. New patients registered, others awaited discharge. Doctors, nurses, and aides hustled through the corridors and wards, attending to patients.
Early that morning Marguerite Canter Cloninger had arrived at the Emergency entrance in a taxicab. She’d chosen not to awaken a neighbor for transportation. The cabbie bolted from the vehicle, yelling for attention. Her husband, Albert William Cloninger, couldn’t accompany her. He was away with the military, fighting the war.
Just moments following her admission, Marguerite Cloninger gave birth to her first child, Glen Albert Cloninger, one mile distant from the Spokane River riverfront seediness in downtown Spokane, where Glen would in later years rebel, as an architect, developer, and entrepreneur, against unending blockades and delays of his decades-long cause from naysayers, public officials, and the Establishment.
*       *       *
Glen’s first ten years were ever-changing for the family. At war’s end his father was released from active duty in the U.S. Coast Guard as a hospital corpsman, though he continued as a reservist and became the operator of a Texaco-owned gas station at the corner of Laura and Newark Avenue in East Spokane’s Perry district, less than three miles from the city center. Glen’s mother was employed as a receptionist at the Spokane Eye Clinic in-between and following the subsequent births of Glen’s siblings Dale, Yvonne, Carrie and Bart.
Thousands of Pacific Northwest veterans returned in late fall and winter 1945, virtually all at once. Demand for housing, automobiles, furniture, and jobs soared. The Cloningers’ major goal was to purchase their first home, assisted by the G.I. Bill.
The family maintained its apartment for a short period following the war at the former Spokane College building on 29 th Avenue, between Grand Boulevard and Garfield street (now Manito Shopping Center) where Marguerite Cloninger had resided since 1941. It had been converted into apartments for military spouses during the war. Although most of the units contained a tiny kitchen, a single bathroom at the end of each corridor was shared by all of the tenants on each of several floors, including the basement. Competition reigned each morning and evening for shower and toilet time.
By 1949, after first moving into a converted dormitory apartment on the small campus, then purchasing a house in the 1600 block on Spokane’s East 40 th Avenue, the growing family purchased a larger three-bedroom home at 1127 E. 40 th ; but in June 1950, Albert Cloninger was recalled to active duty for the Korean War. Glen assumed his father’s household chores, became paternal big brother to his siblings, attended Jefferson Elementary at 37 th and Grand Boulevard, and delivered papers for the Spokane Daily Chron icle .
He became fascinated by two seemingly obscure words that were painted below the logo on a pickup truck that