Good Lookin', May

Good Lookin', May

It’s pretty safe to say that if you grew up in Spokane you are familiar with the Hutton Settlement.  The Hutton settlement is that community of four three story cottages north of Upriver drive on Argonne; the property is currently on the National Registry of Historic Places.  The home was opened in 1919 by Levi Hutton on the premise, ôto provide a home for children deprived of a normal family through no fault of their own.÷  On average 78 children at a time called Hutton Settlement home; the children assimilated into the community through attending area churches and enrolling in school in the West Valley district.  Hutton Settlement was rare in that it didn’t accept any state or federal money; instead the settlement was able to sustain itself nearly entirely on the real estate it sat on.  The land and some money were given to the Hutton Settlement at the time of Levi Hutton’s death.  The children ran the settlement like a farm, as described in 1934, ô a model farm operated by families of boys and girlsà÷.  The Hutton Settlement has served the Spokane area for nearly 100 years, and it’s thanks to the memory of one extraordinary woman.

Levi Hutton grew up an orphan, making a life for himself, but it was not for this reason Mr. Hutton founded the Hutton Settlement.  Of course Levi had a soft spot for orphans and underprivileged children, but it was his wife, May, who gave him the idea.  May Arkwright Hutton was a character.  She was the illegitimate child of a pastor who ran a girls home.  May was raised by her grandfather in Ohio and at the age of 23, May packed up and moved to Kellogg, ID where she would run a boarding house.  Four years later, May and Levi met, married, and moved to the mining town of Wallace, ID.  

It was in Wallace where Levi and May would make their name, Levi financially and May politically.  She would start by fighting for labor rights for miners and rail workers, even writing a book on the subject (later in life she would buy back as many copies of the book as she could, as she was not proud of it).  May was soon a flamboyant spokeswoman for Women’s Suffrage in the Pacific Northwest.  After Idaho passed the right for women to vote in 1896 and Levi’s investment in the Hercules mine paid off millions, her ôPanhandle celebrity÷ began to inflate.  In 1903, during his tour of the Pacific Northwest, Teddy Roosevelt was entertained by the Hutton’s at their home in Wallace.  May would even run for Idaho State Senate in 1904 but would go on to lose.  By 1906, The North Idaho Panhandle had become too small for the new millionaires and they set their sights west into Washington.

They moved to Spokane so Levi could diversify his investments and May had a plan to bring women the right to vote in Washington by 1910.  It was in Spokane and Washington where May clashed with her political rival Emma DeVoe, even though they had the same goal, they differed how to reach that goal; but eventually women could vote in Washington in 1910.  She became a woman of firsts in Spokane; May was the first woman to sit on a jury in Washington, she became the first woman to speak at a Presidential convention in the 1912 Democratic National Convention; also became the first woman registered voter in Spokane county. 

 

May was an instant hit in Spokane.  Author James Montgomery described May and Spokane in his book Liberated Woman, ôthey were really made for each other; both were rambunctious, cocky, independent, and not very mature.÷  The Hutton’s lived in luxury in the penthouses of the Hutton Block on 1st between Washington and Sprague.  May was loved by the Spokane reporters, as it was said she was a woman who had never heard the term ôoff the record.÷  May was in town and was motivated to help make changes and she had the money.  

In her off time from politics and living the high life, May had a soft spot for single mother’s and hated to see these women and children struggle to get by.  May had a plan to alleviate some of these mother’s struggles by helping find them a husband and a suitable environment to raise a family.  She pitched the idea to the city and had the chance to make a match.  A mother named Lilly from a women’s home that May frequented was set up with a farm hand in the Palouse.  After a trial stint together, Lilly decided they made a good match and the two were married.  The farm hand received, ôa wife, housekeeper, companion and as an added bonus, a baby,÷ while the mother and child received a home and father figure.  A time later May returned to check up on the young couple and was pleased with what she encountered; the couple was happy, the child was growing and healthy, and Lilly was pregnant with the couple’s first biological child.  It was a match made in heaven, lonely farmers, single mothers, and May Arkwright Hutton.

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