Hillyard

Hillyard is a neighborhood in Spokane, Washington which existed as a separate town between 1892 and 1924.

The town came about due to the Great Northern Railway and was named for James J. Hill, then-head of the railroad. Between 1904 and 1912, many of the town's houses were built, to house railroad workers working in the local yard. Hillyard was the home of the Great Northern's famed shops where locomotives were manufactured, repaired, and refurbished. At the time, the Hillyard shop was the largest in the nation.

Hillyard continues as a neighborhood of Spokane in which residents take pride. A Hillyard Festival is held every year in August, and the preservation of historic buildings is a local concern. Murals and a small railroad museum celebrate the town's history. Many of the neighborhood's residents are descended from the railroad workers who started the town, but Hillyard is recently becoming a popular home for immigrants of Russian, Ukrainian, Micronesian, and Southeast Asian descent. The downtown Hillyard business district, located on Market Street, has become Spokane's first neighborhood to be listed in the National Register of Historic Places. According to Teresa Brum, Spokane's Historic Preservation Officer in charge of the project to have Hillyard listed on the National Register: "This is the most architecturally intact neighborhood left in Spokane. Most of it looks as it did 90 years ago."