Great Seattle Fire

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Start of the Great Seattle Fire, looking south on 1st Ave. near Madison St.

The Great Seattle Fire began on June 6, 1889.

As with so many of the fires that destroyed cities during this period, the origin of the Great Seattle Fire is clouded in legend. An early newspaper report claimed that the fire began with a glue pot spilled by one James McGough. Although the Seattle Post-Intelligencer corrected the story within weeks, to this day James McGough's glue pot remains as much a legend as Mrs. O'Leary's cow. (Apparently, the fire was indeed started by a tipped glue pot, but in a different part of the building than the unfortunate McGough's paint store. It started in the cabinet maker's shop below poor McGough's paint shop by a young Swede from New York named John E. Back.)

The fire burned 29 city blocks (almost entirely wooden buildings; about 10 brick buildings also burned). It destroyed nearly the entire business district, all of the railroad terminals, and all but four of the wharves. Despite the massive destruction of property, nobody died in the fire, although there were a few fatalities during the cleanup process.

Seattle rebuilt from the ashes with astounding rapidity. The fire had done a fine job of cleansing the town of rats and other vermin; a new zoning code resulted in a downtown of brick and stone buildings, rather than wood. In the single year after the fire, the city grew from 25,000 to 40,000 inhabitants, largely because of the enormous number of construction jobs suddenly created.

Still, south of Yesler Way, the open city atmosphere remained. The most famous figure in this wide open district would be the flamboyant madame Lou Graham, who arrived in Seattle, in 1888, and made herself a force to be reckoned with in the city's politics until her premature death in 1903.

[edit] An Overview

At approximately 2:30 pm on June 6, 1889, an overturned glue pot in the carpentry shop of John Bachs started the most destructive fire in the history of Seattle.¹ Fed by the shop’s timber and an unusually dry summer, the blaze erupted and soon devoured the entire block. The fire quickly spread north to the Kenyon block and the nearby Madison and Griffith blocks. The blaze then extended west to the wharves and by nightfall, had destroyed all but one block of Seattle’s commercial district. A combination of ill-preparedness and unfortunate circumstances contributed to the great fire. Seattle’s water supply was insufficient in fighting the inferno. Hydrants were sparsely located on every other street, usually connected to small pipes.² There were so many hydrants in use during the fire that the water pressure was too weak to fight such a massive blaze. Seattle also operated by a volunteer fire department, which was competent, but inadequate in extinguishing the fire. Over fifty-eight city blocks burned. While there are no records of any deaths, over five thousand jobs were lost in Seattle’s business district. Total losses were estimated at nearly $20,000,000.³ Despite the magnitude of destruction, the rebuilding effort began quickly. Seattle’s saving grace was that citizens decided to rebuild rather than starting over somewhere else. In the year following the fire Seattle’s population actually grew by nearly 20,000 from the influx of people helping to recreate the city.⁴ Supplies and funds came from all over the West Coast to support the relief effort. The population increase made Seattle the largest city in Washington, making it a leading contender in becoming the terminus of the Great Northern Railroad.⁵ In addition to the population growth, many improvements came about from the fire. The city’s fire department shifted from a volunteer to a professional force with new firehouses and a new chief. The city took control of the water supply; increasing the number of hydrants and adding larger pipes.⁶ The advent of brick buildings to downtown Seattle was one of the many architectural improvements the city made in the wake of the fire. New city ordinances set standards for the thickness of walls and required “division walls” between buildings.⁷ These changes became principal features of post-fire construction and are still visible in Seattle’s Pioneer Square district today, the present-day location of the fire

[edit] Footnotes

¹ Charles W. Austin, H.S. Scott, “The Great Seattle Fire of June 6, 1889,” Washington State Genealogical and Historical Review, (Spring 1983), 41-72.
² University of Washington Libraries, “Great Seattle Fire,” <http://content.lib.washington.edu/seattle-fire/index.html > [23 January 2007].
³ Charles W. Austin, H.S. Scott, “The Great Seattle Fire of June 6, 1889,” Washington State Genealogical and Historical Review, (Spring 1983), 45.
⁴ Kent R. Davies, “Sea of Fire,” Columbia Magazine, (Summer 2001), 32-38.
⁵ Norbert MacDonald, Distant Neighbors: A Comparative History of Seattle and Vancouver, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987), 33-38.
⁶ University of Washington Libraries, “Great Seattle Fire,” <http://content.lib.washington.edu/seattle-fire/index.html > [23 January 2007].
⁷ Jeffrey K. Ochner, Dennis A. Anderson, Distant Corner: Seattle Architects and the Legacy OF H.H. Richardson, (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003), 55-110.

[edit] External links

University of Washington Libraries Austin, Charles W., The great Seattle fire of June 6th, 1889: containing a succinct and complete account of the greatest conflagration on the Pacific coast.
University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections Exhibit – The Great Seattle Fire
University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections:
- William F. Boyd Photograph Album 43 photographs of early Seattle, particularly scenes of the Great Seattle Fire of June 6, 1889, and Washington state, ca. 1888-1893.
- Boyd and Braas Photographs 45 photographs, ca. 1888-1893, of early Seattle, including the waterfront and street scenes, the Great Seattle fire of June 6, 1889, Madrona and Leschi parks, Native American hop pickers, and portraits of Seattle pioneers.
- Asahel Curtis Photo Company Photographs Photographs (ca. 1850s-1940) depicting activities in Washington state, the Pacific Northwest, and Alaska and the Klondike.
- Prosch Seattle Views Album 169 images by Thomas Prosch, one of Seattle's earliest pioneers, documenting the early history of Seattle and vicinity, ca. 1851-1906. Included are images of the waterfront, businesses, residences, and the Great Seattle Fire of 1889.
- Prosch Washington Views Album 101 images (ca. 1858-1903) collected and annotated by Thomas Prosch, one of Seattle's earliest pioneers. Images document scenes in Eastern Washington especially Chelan and vicinity, and Seattle's early history including the Great Seattle Fire of 1889.
- Seattle Photographs Ongoing database of over 1,700 historical photographs of Seattle with special emphasis on images depicting neighborhoods, recreational activities including baseball, the Great Seattle Fire of 1889, "The Great Snow of 1916", theaters and transportation.