A Night of Terror in Tacoma
A massive blaze sweeps through a bustling downtown block, consuming businesses and revealing the precarity of the city's early fire defenses.
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.
On April 13th, half of a hundred-foot block on Pacific Avenue was reduced to ash. About two o'clock in the morning, an alarm of fire was sounded on Pacific Avenue near Ninth Street. The fire started at the building occupied by Sam Simons as a cigar establishment, the real estate office of Richard A. Williams, the official city contractor, and a barbershop, and the photograph gallery of Crowell Brothers. Pistols were fired, awakening many people and in fifteen minutes bringing a crowd of several hundred people to the scene. Before any force of firemen could be organized, the building in which the fire was first seen was beyond hope. The fire quickly spread to the furniture store of A. Parker & Co., the hardware store of Guilberg & Macready, and the clothing store of Grote Brothers. Bostwick & Davis’s drug store and the Eureka lodging house on the upper floor were also destroyed. The firemen worked like beavers, but at a sad disadvantage, being unable to turn on a single strong stream of water. A hose attached to the hydrant in front of the Tacoma Savings Bank was of little more use than to fill water pails. By half past six this morning, the ruins were still burning brightly.
“The firemen worked like beavers, but at a sad disadvantage, being unable to turn on a single strong stream of water.”
This 1884 disaster highlights the lethal fragility of early Tacoma, where buildings were essentially 'fuel' waiting for a spark. Today, similar fire hazards are addressed by robust municipal infrastructure and strict code enforcement, though the tension between rapid urban 'booming' and public safety remains a constant civic concern.
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