Ranked the single best park in all of Washington by HGTV and one of the top 25 parks in America by TripAdvisor, there is so much more to Manito Park than meets the eye…and that’s saying something!
Step back in time to Spokane’s earliest days and learn how real estate moguls used parks and privately-owned streetcar lines to attract new residents to their developments. Hear the stories of how Manito – originally Montrose Park – changed hands as its owners’ fortune’s rose and fell. Explore the places that were once home to a thriving and popular zoo within the park, and discover its fate once costs became too much for a young city to bear. This 90-minute guided walking tour is just shy of two miles from start to finish.
Florophiles on the tour will learn how Spokane’s nickname, The Lilac City, took root and discover a one-of-a-kind cultivar of lilac named after the city. Stroll through the Nishinomiya Tsutakawa Garden, an immersive experience that’ll make any visitor feel like they’ve stepped through a portal to Japan. Spokane’s award-winning rose gardens boast over 150 varieties of hybrid tea roses, grandiflora, floribunda and miniature roses along with a collection of old-fashioned roses. Enter the historic Gaiser Conservatory, a 1910 greenhouse where many of the park’s oldest blooms were born, and end your adventure by combing through the famous Duncan Garden, a 3-acre masterpiece designed in a classical European Renaissance style with a central water feature and geometrical planting beds filled with vast displays of colorful annuals spanning more than 20 plants species.