1925 Honorary Member Profile : John E. Blair

Attorney John Ellsworth Blair was elected one of the first four honorary members of the Spokane Mountaineers in January 1925. He received this distinction for his service in setting up and revising the club's by-laws and operating system.

He had significant experience in this work. He became city corporation counsel in 1909 following 3 years as assistant counsel. In 1910, 5 years before the Mountaineers' birth as the Spokane Walking Club, Blair was a member and secretary of the freeholders committee that wrote the charter for the commission-type government under which the City of Spokane operated until 1960. Municipal and other taxing district bonds were Blair's speciality, and he gained national recognition as an expert. He handled most of the city's bond issues, as well as those of school districts and other public bodies in eastern Washington and northern Idaho.

Blair was an advocate of public power and a leader in the 1930's movement to bring electric generation and distribution to the area under public ownership. He was particularly prominent in a move to have the City of Spokane take over Washington Water Power's local distribution facilities. "WWP spent $100,000 to beat us," says son Robert E. Blair, who was in partnership with father in later years.

The senior Blair took other controversial stands. While supporting a proposed $2 million city sewage disposal system in 1936, he wrote to Washington's governor suggesting the possibility of a secret agreement between the governor and the president of the opposing Spokane Homeowner's Association to overlook enforcement of state sanitary laws.

In 1933, Blair warned against a proposed change to the city charter that would remove the primary election for each commissioner. His by-line in a Spokesman-Review article reads that "a mere plurality will elect and city government in Spokane will again be placed under the control of the selfish and cohesive minorities who were so powerful politically in our city affairs before the adoption of the commission plan of government...."

"He was somewhat vociferous at times," son Robert says.

Born in 1875, Blair was the son of a Mercersberg, Pennsylvania, doctor. His boyhood was spent in Mercersberg, where he attended Mercersberg College before going on to Harvard University and obtaining a law degree in 1898. However, the West beckoned, and the young attorney left a Boston practice for Grand Forks, North Dakota, where he organized the University of North Dakota's law department and taught for 3 years. California was next, and he lectured in the law department of Stanford University. It was there that he met James T. Burcham, who was to become his Spokane law partner in 1908.

Why Spokane? Robert believes that his dad was tired of teaching. "He had heard about Spokane as a good place for attorneys."

Blair and his wife (he had married Elsie Bushee in Grand Forks in 1903) came to Spokane in 1904. City directories list an office address at an Empire State Building and a home address at the San Marco Apartments, but he and Elsie moved frequently-10 times in 19 years, until the family, now including two sons, John, Jr., and Robert, finally settled at E. 901 26th in 1923. During this time, office addresses included the Wolverton, the Hyde Building, and finally, the Sherwood Building in 1917.

Liberty Lake was a second home. "We spend 4 or 5 months a year in a cabin there," Robert says. "He built it with his own hands." He liked skiing, did a "certain amount" of canoeing, and enjoyed his in-board motorboat. Water skiing? "He tried it," his son remembers. Golfing and reading about ancient history were other favorite pastimes, and the latter became an interest shared by Robert. Interestingly, Robert became a snow skier and climbed numerous small area peaks, although never as a youth with his father. Spokane's University Club, which elected Blair president, and Harvard University alumni activities were some of the elder Blair's social interests. "He had a lot of pride in Harvard," his son, who is also a Harvard graduate, points out. And he was a member in both the state and local bar associations.

Spokane was Blair's home for 47 years, until his death in a local hospital in 1951 at the age of 76. Robert joined his father's practice before World War II (partner Burcham had died in 1924), and shortly after rejoining the firm in 1945, his father suffered a mobility-impairing stroke that confined his legal work to what he could pursue from home. Robert became a leading municipal bond attorney in his own right. Blair's son John, Jr., a doctor who also served in the military and attended Harvard, died in 1977.

Mountaineer records are skimpy in their mention of Blair following his honorary award. He was an honored attendee at the club's 20th anniversary banquet in 1935 at the Spokane Hotel's Stone Room.

Excepts from Clark's 1912 History of the City of Spokane and Spokane County, Washington show the community's high regard for John Blair. "Mr. Blair is independent in politics and his interest in the affairs of the community is that of a public-spirited citizen who realized the opportunities for progress and improvement, and he labors to achieve what may be attained in this direction...Mr. Blair is widely known for the care with which he prepares his cases. In no instance has his reading been confined to limitations of the questions at issue but has encompassed every contingency...."

Lorna Ream