In early February of 1986, when the Journal of Business published its first edition, I, too, was seeing my name in print for the first time. I was a freshman staff writer at my high-school newspaper who was basking in the glory of my first piece of journalism—a critical review of the straight-to-VHS "The Best of John Belushi."

If that doesn't make you feel old, consider Journal reporter Chey Scott. She's happy to report she was born two years after the Journal was conceived.

As it turns out, Chey and I aren't all that's come a long way since the 1980s. The Inland Northwest has grown a lot since then as well.

A couple of weeks ago, Journal Operations Manager Paul Read pulled some statistics from 1986 to see how they compare with current figures. We weren't able to fit the comparison in our anniversary section last issue, but some of the numbers are too interesting to keep to ourselves.

Let's start with people. In April of last year, 470,300 people lived in Spokane County—about 114,000 more than lived here in 1986. That 25-year growth spurt produced more than the entire current population of Coeur d'Alene and Post Falls combined.

Not that Kootenai County hasn't grown considerably in its own right. The North Idaho county's population is bumping up against the 140,000 mark, with more than 45,000 people in Coeur d'Alene and about 26,500 in Post Falls. Kootenai County's population is more than double what it was 25 years earlier, as is Coeur d'Alene's. Post Falls only had about 6,400 people living there in the mid-1980s, a quarter of what it is now.

Not only are there a lot more people here today, but they're making a lot more money than they did in 1986. The per-capita income in Spokane County in 1986 was $11,885. As of 2009, the most recent year for which data is available, the per-capita income was $33,885.

If you had put some of that 12 grand in the stock market in 1986 and had left it there, chances are good you would have been handsomely rewarded. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 1986 at just under 1,900 points. Earlier this week, it was trading north of 12,300.

Of course, stocks aren't the only items that have risen in price. Despite a few years of depreciation in a slumping real estate market, the median home price in 2010, at $163,450, still is more than triple the $52,000 it was back in 1986. And the average price of a new car now is $28,400. You could have used that to fill a three-car garage with brand-new Ford Tauruses or the like in 1986, when the average new-car price was $9,215.

Keeping the gas tank filled is going to cost quite a bit more than it did as well. Back in the mid-1980s, one could fill up for around 90 cents a gallon. These days, gas is around $3.15 a gallon in the Spokane area.

Throw it all together, though, and it actually costs about the same to live, work, and play in the Inland Northwest as it did 25 years ago. It might be hard to believe, but the cost-of-living index for Spokane County recently has hovered around 93, a smidge lower than the 96.5 mark reported in 1986.

It'll be interesting to see what happens in the next 25 years. Will the per-capita income triple again to encroach on the $100,000 mark? Will a Shadle Park-area rancher run you some $400,000 in 2035? Those numbers are hard to fathom, but really, it's tough to say. As people read an upstart business newspaper 25 years ago, it's hard to imagine they could have envisioned how much things would change. A kid from Montana sure didn't see what was coming.