Fire Levels Kiona Business District
A pre-dawn blaze incinerates a general store, hotel, and post office, leaving sleeping guests with a narrow escape.
Fire early Monday morning destroyed the Kelso Brothers company store and hotel, the post office, and four warehouses at Kiona, the loss being $20,000 with insurance at $8,000. The hotel and store contents are a total loss. Part of the contents of the warehouses was saved. Several persons sleeping in the hotel had a close call. The origin of the fire is unknown.
“Several persons sleeping in the hotel had a close call.”
Kiona was once a bustling waypoint along the Yakima River. Like many small railroad-era towns, its survival was tied to infrastructure that eventually shifted, and today it exists as a quiet, unincorporated shadow of its former commercial self.
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