Firefighters battle stubborn blaze in North Seattle block
A basement fire under a millinery shop creates a late-night hazard for North Seattle responders.
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 extinguished a stubborn fire in the Trantz block on Front street, between Pike and Blanchard, in North Seattle this morning about 1 o'clock, with a loss of about $1,000. The blaze was discovered coming from the basement under a millinery store by Miss Grant and by Patrolman Osborn. An alarm was turned in from box 61, and in a short time the firemen were at work. The fire had gotten in between the floors and spread to a tailor shop, occupied by H. Hopner, and also was spreading in the basement rapidly. The firemen made an entrance through a trap door, and after a very hard and hot fight, got the under side of the floor under control. As near as can be learned, the fire started from a chimney that came down to the floor at a point almost midway between the tailor shop and the millinery store. The principal damage was in the basement and to the floors in the two shops; the loss will not exceed $1,000, fully insured, with stock and fixtures of the fire-damaged shops protected.
“The firemen made an entrance through a trap door, and after a very hard and hot fight, got the under side of the floor under control.”
The intersection of Front Street (now First Avenue) and Pike was part of the city's commercial core at the time. Today, the area remains a dense urban corridor, though the wooden buildings of 1893 have long since been replaced by concrete and steel, and modern fire safety codes have largely eliminated the risk of 'stubborn' chimney-based fires in retail blocks.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.