The Price of Pioneer Street
A suspected incendiary blaze tears through a grocery and saloon, narrowly missing the Kink Opera House.
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 Waits block, on the corner of Pioneer and First streets, was burned last night. The fire started in the storeroom occupied by M. C. Price with a stock of wines and groceries. The flames were first observed about 1:00 AM and had burned their way out on the Pioneer street side. By the time the fire department arrived, the building was a mass of flames, and it was feared that not only the Waits building but all others in the block would go. By hard, persistent work, the fire was kept to that one building, although the Kink opera house stood only six feet away. The losses include A. A. Brownell, building, $3,000; M. C. Price, goods, $3,000; I. O. G. T., $150; J. Bowers, shoemaker, stock and tools, $100; and Will Crist, painter, stock and tools. The fire is suspected to be of incendiary origin.
“The fire is supposed to have been of incendiary origin.”
Pioneer Square and the surrounding district remain a dense collection of historic masonry, a layout that historically made the city incredibly vulnerable to rapid, multi-block fire spreads. Today, this location is the heart of the tourist district, yet the vulnerability to fire or natural disaster remains a constant conversation in Seattle's dense urban core.
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