Bears Saved from Madison Street Blaze
A photograph gallery fire triggers a frantic rescue of two captive bears at the Lake Washington terminus of the cable line.
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.
Three two-story frame buildings, located at the Lake Washington terminus of the Madison street cable road, were burned to the ground yesterday afternoon about 5:30 o'clock. A. Lunn ran a photograph gallery in the upper story of the building, west of Graves Garner's store. Yesterday afternoon he was finishing tintypes and, while in his developing room, upset the lamp used in drying the plate. Lunn tried to catch the lamp and in doing so knocked over a bottle of collodion. The flames spread like lightning. As the fire grew, a crowd gathered, and panic ensued near a cage containing two bears. The bears, 'Jack' and 'Susie', were terrified by the fire and the howling crowd. Joseph Charters and J.F. McCay managed to protect the animals by tearing down a porch to create space, moving them into a small shed, and drenching the shed with water while the buildings burned. The bears were saved, though the fire caused about $5,500 in damages.
“The crowd yelled: 'Let 'em out, let 'em out,' while the answer from those near the cage was, 'No, no.'”
The intersection of Madison Street and the Lake Washington waterfront was a major transit hub in 1892, characterized by frame buildings and the popular cable line. Today, the area is heavily developed, but the tension between urban fire safety, public spectacle, and the presence of captive animals remains a classic, albeit bizarre, slice of Seattle’s historical development.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.