1899 - The Great Seattle Fire

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At about 2:30 p.m. on June 6, 1889, a pot of glue bursts into flames in Victor Clairmont's basement cabinet shop at the corner of Front (1st Avenue) and Madison streets. 

John Back, ca. 1885, who accidentally started the Great Seattle Fire of 1889

Efforts to contain the fire fail and it quickly engulfs the wood-frame building.

Thanks to a dry spring and a brisk wind, the flames spread, and volunteer firefighters tap out the town's inadequate, privately owned water mains. 

A majority of the business district burns completely, and the core of Seattle is left in ruins.  It takes the city more than 3 years to recover from the incident.

The Great Fire in Progress. 
This Photograph was taken from a roof at Pike & Second

a crowd gathers in the early going, to watch the firemen fight the big fire.   By sunset, some 64 acres lie in smoldering ruins. This event is known as Seattle's Great Fire. 

Before and After:  Downtown Seattle... the pic on the left: taken on June 5, 1889... the one on the right, taken June 7, 1889, the day after the Great fire...

Many sections of Seattle were wholly destroyed the the fire...

The once-proud city was a mess...

The Occidental Hotel, once a symbol of luxury in Seattle, was decimated.

The rail yard, build partially on piles and piers, was heavily damaged as well, hindering the shipment of goods and supplies in the rebuilding effort.

Mayor Robert Moran rallied Seattle's citizens to rebuild -- with brick and stone this time. The result survives today as Pioneer Square. 

Many historians of Seattle erroneously ascribed the Great Fire's start to James McGough's paint shop on the floor above Clairmont's workshop at 1st and Madison, based on initial newspaper reports. McGough protested his innocence, and the Post-Intelligencer published a correction and detailed interview with John Back on June 21, 1889. Despite this, the error was repeated by historians and journalists for nearly a century until historian James Warren noticed the correction and, in his 1989 monograph The Day Seattle Burned, shifted the point of origin to Clairmont's shop. 

Making do... shortly after the fire, most of downtown businesses had re-established themselves in tents.

 

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