One of the banks I worked on in the Spokane area was installing outlets for the B.O.L. system.  (Banking On-Line)  At the time, this was a new and innovative idea.  For instance, a person could work in Seattle, get paid, deposit their check at a bank in Seattle, and their spouse could go to the branch in Spokane and withdraw the money from the account.  Today that sounds pretty common place, but back then it was a new feature.

The installation process required that I have access to all areas of the bank.  That in turn required that I have a set of keys to every room in the bank.  I was given a large ring with numerous keys on it.  It made me very nervous.  I would take those keys home with me and never let them out of my sight.  If money turned up missing from the bank, as a key holder I could be under suspicion.  I did not like being in that position at all.

There was only one room to which I did not have a key.  It was the check counting room.  To enter that room I had to knock on a little window about 18 inches square.  The lady would look over, and if she recognized the individual, she would let them in.  The custodian told me that the glass in the square window could not be broken with a sledge hammer.

I needed to drill holes in various rooms, through concrete walls and in concrete floors, to install the outlets in the needed locations.  The custodian informed me that there were vibration sensors in all the floors and walls.  Therefore, before I started to drill a hole I would inform the custodian and he would turn off the sensors.  When I was done I would once again inform the custodian and he would turn the sensors back on.

Besides the vibration sensors, one room also had very sensitive equipment that could not have dust in the room.  I laid a large sheet of visqueen over the floor where I had to drill.  Then I got under the sheet with the drill in my hand and the visqueen draped over my back.  I crawled under the plastic to the location on the floor where I needed to drill the holes. I got the holes drilled in the floor…and nearly choked to death from the dust before I crawled out from under the visqueen.  Those kinds of tasks have taken a pretty heavy toll on my lungs.

I always tried to ignore what was going on around me as I worked.  I didn’t want to learn what was none of my business.  However, I couldn’t help but notice one often repeated phone conversation as I was crawling around the floor of one particular room.  It went something like this –

“Is this the accountant for (business X)?”

“What does your deposit of (a specific) date show to be the amount?”

There were three people at three desks making these calls.  Apparently, from what I gathered the bank was trying to locate a couple hundred thousand dollars.
I was very careful not to stand up when I finished an outlet and say; “Aye Gollies, I did it.”

I never did find out if they found their money – nor did I want to know.

More later.

The Davenport Hotel had a parapet around the whole hotel roof, about 18 inches high, with a concrete cap on it.  Around the perimeter, pipes stuck up out of the cap.  The pipes were about 4 inches across and six foot high.  On top of each pipe was a light fixture, looking over the parapet about 8 stories to the sidewalk below.

The lights had been out for years and the decision was made to get them lit.  The fixtures had originally been wired in conduit coming up through the pipe in the parapet with lead coated cable inside the pipe.  After a number of years the lead had adhered to the pipe and it was impossible to remove.

We ran conduit across the roof to each pole.  In each pole we would drill a hole, tap a ½” thread, and run a wire through the conduit, through the hole, and then to the light fixture on the top of the tall pipe.

We would strap ourselves to the pipe, stand on the parapet, and rewire each fixture.  While we were drilling the pipe and tapping it we had a rope fastened from the drill to the center of the building roof.  We didn’t want to lose the drill and have it fall to the street below on someone’s head!  We must have worked a week on the project, as there were at least a dozen fixtures.

When we finished the job the other guys and I stood there admiring our work.  There were three more poles sticking up between that building and another building next to us.  The roof on the adjoining building was about 3 stories lower than the roof of the Davenport.

As we were standing there I reached over and bumped a pole with the palm of my hand.  (I wondered why they didn’t want these three fixtures lit.)  The pole broke off at the concrete edge.

We managed to catch the pole before it went over the edge, and laid it down inside the parapet.  We all got quiet.  I felt rather sick.  How we had been hanging off those poles for a week, wiring them!  We picked up our tools and left the job rather quickly.  None of us wanted to go back and disconnect all those poles because they might have been a danger.

Even now, after many years, I still feel a little bit of a shudder.

The Davenport Hotel is, if not the oldest hotel in Spokane, certainly one of the oldest.  At one time it was a grand hotel!  I don’t know why it had deteriorated to the point it had when I was called out to work on it.  For a period of time the shop I was working for was taking care of the electrical, trying to keep it going.

There was a basement to the hotel, and also a sub-basement.  In the sub-basement there was an old air conditioner with water running through a grid.  It was defunct when I began working there.

The electrical tap, off of the city sub-electrical system, was still operating.  It came into the sub-basement from under the street.  The sub-basement was very damp, with water standing on the floor.  I was afraid to leave my tools there overnight, as I was concerned the whole thing might blow up at any time.  I have no idea how they finally corrected the dampness situation.

The basement extended out under the city sidewalk surrounding it.  An old antique elevator went up through the sidewalk to facilitate receiving or removing materials. In the basement there were layers and layers of pipe attached to the ceiling.  The uppermost, top layer was the electrical conduits.  The electrical conduit was connected to open junction boxes with wire sticking out.  It was not possible to fix the open boxes with code worthy wiring methods because the layers of plumbing (sewer, water, gas, steam, air, etc.) kept the boxes out of reach.  The heating system for the hotel was steam.  Valves were located throughout the hotel to regulate the heating.

On the first floor there was a laundry and a sewing room that were no longer in use.  In fact, no one knew the sewing room was there until a wall was removed during renovation.

The most incredible thing about the hotel was the kitchen.  It was decided to remove all the old cooking equipment and install new equipment.  The existing units were made of cast iron and had never been moved from the time the kitchen was first installed.  When the cast iron equipment was removed they workers found a buildup of hardened grease up to 18 inches deep.

Working on all the equipment was an education in itself.  When the electrical inspector came down to inspect my work, I pointed out to him that there were wires lying across a steam pipe.  I told him I hadn’t done that.  Then I pointed out open junction boxes.  I said I couldn’t reach them to fix them.  He commented that it was pretty bad but made no further comments.

Later on I learned that in the Davenport’s “Hey Days”, the inspector I conferred with had been the building electrician.

Over the years since the Davenport Hotel was first built, many codes – both electrical and building standards – have changed.

Recently the Davenport has been restored and remodeled to a five star hotel.