The Mystery of the Smalley House Fires
A suspicious string of blazes on Queen Anne Hill has residents calling for a new fire station.
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 police investigation into the origin of the fire which on Sunday destroyed the residence of Mr. N.D. Smalley, on Highland Drive, has resulted in the discovery of clear evidences of incendiarism. The officer on duty yesterday pointed out the suspicious fact that fire had started on the parlor floor, close to the wall, in the same room where a fire had been contained while the interior of the parlor was being cleaned. There was no connection in the ceiling or up the sides of the stair through which the flames penetrated to the upper stories. The fire in the parlor was a separate one and was put out by the fire department before it had eaten through the partitions. A second fire was discovered which burned off the roof. The floor in the first and second stories was not touched. The residents of Queen Anne Hill are considerably stirred up over the delay by the fire department in putting an end to the menace, citing the necessity of building an engine house on the hill, or one in its immediate vicinity.
“The residents of Queen Anne Hill are considerably stirred up over the delay by the fire department in putting an end to the menace.”
More than a century later, the lack of sufficient fire infrastructure on Seattle’s growing hills remains a point of civic friction, mirroring the tension between rapid residential development and emergency services in modern Seattle neighborhoods like Queen Anne.
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