Cheney Interurban Depot

Built in 1907. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

From the record

“Cheney Interurban Depot was an interurban train station in Cheney, Washington, United States. It was built by the Washington Water Power Company in 1907 as the terminus of the line from Spokane.”
Wikipedia article Cheney Interurban Depot, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 159 National Register listings published here for Spokane County · listed in 1979 · category: Building · built in 1907.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
Address. 505 2nd St., Cheney, 99004
When was it listed? March 1979
Category. building
Census division. Cheney-Medical Lake
When was it built? 1907
National Register reference number. 79002555 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

202 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 202 fires within 5 miles of Cheney Interurban Depot between 1992 and 2020, burning about 1,366 acres in total. 30 started naturally. 16 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	42
Recreation and ceremony	37
Natural	30
Debris and open burning	27
Arson/incendiarism	16
Equipment and vehicle use	16
Railroad operations and maintenance	14
Power generation/transmission/distribution	8
Fireworks	4
Misuse of fire by a minor	3
Other causes	3
Smoking	2

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
9 September 1999	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Washington State Department of Natural Resources Headquarters	not named
6 September 2012	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	4.5 acres	Washington State Department of Natural Resources Headquarters	MT CARMEL
5 September 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge	CURTIS RD.
5 September 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Washington State Department of Natural Resources Headquarters	CURTIS ROAD
5 September 2013	Natural	under an acre	Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge	NORTH BOUNDARY
5 September 2013	Natural	under an acre	Washington State Department of Natural Resources Headquarters	SPOTTED STRIKEOUT
4 September 2013	Natural	under an acre	Washington State Department of Natural Resources Headquarters	SPOTTED STRIKE
4 September 1995	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Washington State Department of Natural Resources Headquarters	not named

Every fire recorded in Spokane County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 21 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 21 workings within 5 miles of Cheney Interurban Depot: 16 past producers, 4 occurrences, 1 producer. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Fire Clay (Refractory), Gemstone. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status
Cheney Quarry	Stone	Producer
Fish Lake	Gemstone	Occurrence
Fish Lake	Slate, Dimension	Past Producer
Fish Lake	Uranium	Occurrence
Fish Lake Pegmatite	Feldspar	Occurrence
Cheney	Fire Clay (Refractory)	Past Producer
Wellsandt	Fire Clay (Refractory)	Occurrence
Cheney Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
Unnamed Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
Unnamed Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Spokane County

Storms near this property

9 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Cheney, the town this property stands in, in 9 storm reports between 1997 and 2020: 5 thunderstorm wind, 2 hail, 1 lightning, 1 funnel cloud. The reports record 4 injuries. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
July 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	South Cheney	4 hurt, $4,000,000	A wet microburst brought sustained winds of 35 to 50 mph with gusts 60 to 70 mph across Spokane County. The winds descended near Cheney and peaked while passing through Airway Heights, Northwestern Spokane, and Deer Park. Hundreds of Ponderosa Pines were snapped and downed from Northwestern Spokane to Deer Park. Downed trees led to widespread structural damage, blocked roads, power outages, and injuries. Significant damage was observed at the Riverside Village Mobile Home Park from trees falling on mobile homes prompting a search and rescue. One woman was trapped but was not injured. At least 40 mobile homes and cars in the park were severely damaged. Forty eight trees were knocked down at a resort on Lake Eloika. Trees fell on six RVs and the resort's oldest cabin forcing the owners to close their doors for a short period of time. One person was injured when a tree landed on his vehicle while driving along Lakeside Dr near Reflection Lake in Elk, WA. A tree branch flew through his windshield and drove him off the road severing his arm and impaling his hip. He eventually lost his arm in the accident. Three other people were injured near the Spokane Courthouse by falling tree branches. Over 30,000 people lost power during the event. Because of the extent of damage, some residents and businesses remained in the dark for up to four days. Downed power poles and lightning strikes sparked several new wildfires which quickly grew due to the strong winds. The winds completely damaged a airport hanger and caused between ten to twelve thousand dollars worth of damage to planes.
January 2000	Thunderstorm Wind	Cheney	$20,000	Downed tree on to car
May 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	South Cheney	$10,000	A utility company reported approximately 45,000 customers without power, mainly in the Cheney and southwest Spokane area, due to branches falling on the power lines.
March 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Cheney	$5,000	A forty-foot tree fell on a house from winds behind the squall line. Damage costs were estimated.
March 2016	Funnel Cloud	Cheney	-	Numerous individuals observed a cold core funnel cloud near Cheney, WA near 2:45 PM PDT. A local weather reported posted photos of the funnel cloud to his social media accounts.
April 2001	Lightning	Cheney	-	An unusual thunderstorm with frequent lightning moved across Spokane. Cloud-to-ground lightning hit two electric substations on the north side of Spokane, knocking out power to 15,000 residences for up to two hours.
July 1997	Hail	Cheney	-	1 inch hail reported by a spotter
May 1997	Hail	Cheney	-	3/4 inch hail
April 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Cheney	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Spokane County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
City of Cheney Historic District	under 500 feet	2001
Cheney Odd Fellows Hall	0.1 miles	1990
David Lowe House	0.2 miles	1983
Washington State Normal School at Cheney Historic District	0.3 miles	1992
Sutton Barn	0.7 miles	1975
Italian Rock Ovens	2.8 miles	1976

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 79002555 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Spokane County	All 159 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.