The Narrow Escape of the Elma Hotel
A stove long left unused nearly claimed the town's hotel when it was fired up once too often.
The Elma Hotel was in great danger of burning down one day this week. It seems that H. J. Bunn, the proprietor, kindled a fire in one of the stoves that had not been used for some time, and having occasion to leave for a short time, came back just in time to extinguish a fire that had gained considerable headway in the floor under the stove.
“The Elma Hotel was in great danger of burning down one day this week.”
Old buildings with forgotten, derelict infrastructure pose a perennial risk in small towns. This near-miss in 1894 Elma reflects the constant anxiety of timber-era boomtowns regarding fire, a threat that still defines civic planning and insurance realities in the Pacific Northwest today.
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