The Tragedy of the Elliott Block Fire
A coroner's jury investigates the death of two brothers in a nighttime fire, leaving their family displaced and the local community rushing to provide aid.
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.
The inquest on the remains of Earle and Vernon Tanner, the two boys who were burned to death in the McClaire street fire early on Thursday morning, was held at Bonney Stewart's undertaking rooms yesterday afternoon by Coroner Horton. Ralph N. Elliott, son of the owner of the building, testified that he and his mother had been spending the evening at R. F. Winchell's and got home at 11:30. He does not know whether or not he had a cigar, but he had no light. He might have thrown the stump of a cigar away while in the basement. Both he and his mother were in bed before midnight. Milton Tanner, the father, testified that the fire came from the basement. The boys' room was only nine feet from the ground, but he could not get to it for the flames. The jury returned a verdict stating the boys came to their death by fire in the Elliott house, with the cause unknown. The Tanner family is currently staying with relatives while the community has rallied to raise over $174 in relief funds.
“He was the last witness, and the jury then retired. After rather long deliberation the following verdict was brought in: We, your coroner's jury to inquire into the death of Earle and Vernon Tanner, find they came to their death by being burned in the building known as the Elliott house.”
This fire occurred in a period of rapid and often unsafe expansion for Seattle. Like the 1892 fire in the Elliott Block, modern Seattle remains acutely sensitive to housing vulnerability, where displacement—whether by fire or rising costs—triggers a desperate but immediate community response for aid.
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