The Midnight Alarm at Pioneer Place
A construction mishap at the Yesler block causes a spectacular electrical failure and a city-wide false alarm.
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 fire department, electric light and A.D.T. wires got crossed near the corner of Front and Cherry streets yesterday morning at 2:40 o'clock, and in less than three minutes $350 worth of electrical apparatus was destroyed. The derrick used in raising building material into the upper story of the Yesler block, corner of Yesler avenue and Pioneer place, was held partly by a guy rope attached to a tall post nearby, which was thereby pulled over a few feet. When the rope was taken off, the post went back to its original position and the wires attached to the crossbeams sagged until they got mixed up with some of the other numerous wires, and then lightning flew in every direction. The young lady at the telephone office felt the shock and, with great presence of mind, grounded the main wires, thus saving the relays. An auxiliary wire leading to fire box 15 let the current enter the relay from underneath, and while the coils were burning out, the fire bell at headquarters was clanging in a wild and unheard-of manner. The first tap of the bell brought out the men and the horses. Superintendent of Fire Alarm Pinckney worked to find the trouble, while the city's sleepy citizens wondered what had happened that a general alarm should be sounded.
“One lady exclaimed that the city must be on fire north, south, east and west, and emphasized her fear by going to sleep.”
Early Seattle infrastructure was a chaotic web of overhead wires, prone to 'shorting out' with dangerous consequences. This intersection of First Avenue and Cherry Street is now home to dense urban development, a far cry from the days when a loose derrick line could send a city into a panic.
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