Heavy Snows Collapse Buildings in Gray's Harbor City
A winter storm brings devastation to the new townsite, demolishing a two-story hotel that never saw a guest.
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.
We are informed that the snow did considerable damage at the 'terminus' this week, the worst of it being the total demolition of the Butler building on Sixth street. This was built two years ago and never occupied. It was two stories and fifty feet front, with two store rooms below and arranged for a hotel above. It probably cost at least $5,000 and appears to be a total loss. The owner resides on the Sound. The hotel building belonging to M. J. Everley was also badly damaged by the heavy weight of snow on the roof. The company’s blacksmith shop was also totally demolished.
“This was built two years ago and never occupied... it appears to be a total loss.”
Gray's Harbor City was an ambitious, speculative 'boom' town established to be the terminus for the Northern Pacific, but it was famously eclipsed by Aberdeen and Hoquiam. Today, the site of this vanished dream is largely quiet, leaving almost no trace of the ambitious hotels and shops built by hopeful investors in the early 1890s.
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