Archives West Finding Aid

The son of a riverboat operator of moderate wealth from Dayton, Ohio, Cyrus Bradley spent his young adulthood moving about the American West in various capacities until he located in Spokane Falls in 1883. There he founded a newspaper, the Spokane Miner, with his brother-in-law, Graham B. Dennis. Shortly, however, they abandoned the paper to concentrate on a venture in urban real estate development which largely centered on "Dennis and Bradley's Addition." A highly successful venture in the late 1880's and early 1890's, the addition became involved in financial difficulties in the mid-1890's, as did Bradley's investments in Spokane's Second Railroad Addition and in the Ross Park Street Railroad and the Washington Water Power Company. Narrowly escaping failure, Bradley emerged from the depression of the 1890's as a modest trader and investor in real estate, mining properties and irrigation projects. His investments were no longer concentrated in Spokane, but scattered throughout the West, and even included some as far away as Florida. One of Spokane's leading figures in his days as town boomer, Bradley spent his later years simply trying to earn a modest income. He remained active in philanthropic and social work organizations, but he never again became one of the powerful leaders of the city. Instead his main concern seems to have been the welfare of the family of his brother-in-law and ex-partner, Graham B. Dennis, who did not manage even a modest recovery from the financial turmoil of the 1890's.