Furniture Factory Nearly Lost to Waterfront Fire
Firefighters battle a stubborn blaze beneath the old Mechanics' Wharf after flames broke out under a newly opened mattress and furniture factory.
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 furniture factory of Charles K. Zorn and the wharf upon which it stands, at the corner of Front and Norman streets, caught fire yesterday morning at 6 o'clock, and but for good work by the fire department a serious conflagration would have ensued. The factory building sits on the old Mechanics' wharf and is known as the mattress factory. A few weeks ago Zorn opened it as a furniture factory and was just getting the machinery ready to commence work. Yesterday morning one of Schuster Co.'s teamsters saw smoke coming from the boiler room in dense quantities, and immediately telephoned to the fire department. Companies 2, 3, and truck No. 1 and chemical No. 1 responded, but immediate work was prevented owing to the location of the fire. The flames had eaten from beneath the brickwork of the boiler through the wharf and then spread over a surface about sixteen feet square. Firemen were let down under the wharf by ropes and then by means of scaling ladders, placed against the wharf piles, a footing was obtained and the fire soon brought under control. While some of the men were working from underneath the wharf others cut away the flooring at the side and in front of the boiler and removed the charred timbers where the fire had started. Chief Hunt points to the origin of the fire as another case of neglect in regard to the separating layer between firebox and woodwork. The property is owned by the Hart Lumber Company, and is uninsured. The damage was nominal.
“Firemen were let down under the wharf by ropes and then by means of scaling ladders... a footing was obtained and the fire soon brought under control.”
Early Seattle was a city built on wood and tideflats, making fire a constant existential threat to its burgeoning industrial sector. Today, the area near Front (now First Avenue) and Norman remains a dense, historic district, though replaced by masonry and steel that are far less prone to the 'wharf-fire' nightmares that once plagued the city's waterfront.
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