Inferno at the Spokane Falls
Four mills destroyed and workers missing after a massive industrial fire consumes the riverfront.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Fire broke out at 3:30 this afternoon in the building of the Spokane Mill Company, on the river front. The flames spread with wonderful rapidity, and in a few minutes the entire structure was ablaze. The employees had to run for their lives, and three of them were injured in leaping from the building. Two employees, Adolph Schultz and a man named Butcher, are missing, and it is feared they perished in the flames. In spite of the efforts of the fire department the flames quickly spread to the Echo roller mills, which were entirely consumed. The fire then jumped across the river and destroyed the oatmeal mill owned by Olney & Wadhams, and the building of the Washington Shingle Company. Four cottages were burned, and the Howard street bridge, the National Iron Works and a steam laundry were damaged. The total loss is estimated at $300,000.
“The flames spread with wonderful rapidity, and in a few minutes the entire structure was ablaze.”
The 1892 fire highlighted the extreme volatility of wood-frame industrial districts in early Washington. Today, the site of the Spokane Mill is part of the redeveloped riverfront park system, but the memory of these early industrial disasters remains embedded in the city's urban planning history.
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