The Tragedy at the Red Front
A late-night fiddler perishes in an Everett lodging house fire that leaves downtown businesses in ruins.
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.
At 5:30 o'clock this morning, fire broke out in a building known as the Red Front lodging house on Market Street, near Hewitt Avenue. The flames spread rapidly, and soon the Merrill house and two or three one-story buildings were in flames. A new two-story building just erected for a saloon at a cost of $2,000, and not yet occupied, was the last to go on the south. The firemen held it there. The entire loss is about $5,000, partially insured. William Burton, better known as Billy the Fiddler, perished in the flames. He had been playing all night at Clancy Monroe's dance house and was seen leaving the place about 5 o'clock. He slept in the Red Front. His charred remains were found in the ruins. A man named Drucher, in trying to save furniture, was badly burned and his condition is serious.
“William Burton, better known as Billy the Fiddler, perished in the flames. His charred remains, burned to a crisp, were found in the ruins.”
Everett was a rapidly booming timber town in 1892, and the transient 'lodging house' culture was the backbone of its growth. Today, this intersection near Hewitt and Market remains a hub for the city's downtown identity, though the wooden shacks of the frontier era have long since given way to brick and stone.
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