Fire at 222 Lexter Street
A suspicious, quickly contained blaze breaks out in a North Seattle home.
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.
A two-story house owned by David F. Neely of Kent, and occupied by John Nilson, at 222 Lexter street, North Seattle, was damaged by fire last night to the extent of $150. The occupants of the house were absent when the fire started, but others reported it immediately to engine house No. 4. It took only a few minutes to smother the flames. The fire started in a clothes closet upstairs, but the cause is a mystery. The house was insured for $1,000.
“The fire started in a clothes closet upstairs, but the cause is a mystery.”
Fires in small wooden homes were the terror of Seattle's early growth. While the specific street name 'Lexter' has vanished from modern maps (likely an early name for a road in a platted but unpaved district), the vulnerability of housing stock remains a central theme in Seattle's civic story.
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