It travels approximately 17 miles 27 km , extending from Downtown Spokane eastward through Spokane Valley as an arterial road , and continues on as a collector road to its eastern terminus in Liberty Lake.
While these two segments are entirely discontinuous with the main portion of Sprague Avenue and not generally considered part of that road, they follow the alignment of Sprague Avenue through Spokane and Spokane Valley and also continue the house numbering system from Spokane. Sprague by city founder, James N. In the s, Sprague Avenue was the longest continuous stretch of road in the city and once billed as the "most traveled street in Spokane", connecting downtown Spokane to the suburban farming communities in the Spokane Valley, the Spokesman-Review reported in that "thousands of tourists traverse it during the summer season.
Hundreds of suburbanites and Valley farmers use it daily. Sprague Avenue plays a major role in Spokane's street grid and house numbering system, which was established by the Spokane City Council in the early s. Ordinance A, which set the system that Spokane still uses to this day, was passed by Spokane City Council on November 4, Sprague Avenue establishes the numbering system for roads running in the north—south direction.
All roads running northward from Sprague in the Northwest and Northeast Divisions utilize an "N" prefix in their address, with odd numbers running along the west side of those roads and even numbers running along the east side. Address numbers start at 1, and increase moving north. Roads running southward from Sprague in the Southwest and Southeast Divisions utilize an "S" prefix in their address.
The numbering in these two southern divisions is opposite of their northern counterparts; odd numbers run along the east side of the road and even numbers run along the west side. Address numbers start at 1, and increase moving south. Sprague Avenue's intersection with Division Street in Downtown Spokane is significant, marking the 0, 0 origin point for house numbering and cardinal direction prefixes for roads throughout the Spokane area. Additionally, because Division establishes the prefixes and odd—even numbering rules for roads running in the east—west direction, it also divides Sprague into East Sprague where odd numbers run along the north side of the road and even numbers along the south and West Sprague where odd numbers run along the south side of the road and even numbers along the north.
