The Day Northport Vanished

Northport is in ruins. Of the entire business district, nothing but ashes remain. More than 40 buildings went up in smoke this morning. Dozens of people are homeless today; scores are penniless. Of all the buildings on the flat, but two are left standing—the Spokane Northern depot and Kendricks' store. Late last night some careless smoker threw the stub of a lighted cigarette on the carpet in the little tailor shop behind Madden & Riley's saloon on Fourth Avenue; there it smoldered. At 4 o'clock this morning flames shot up through the roof of the building. Ten minutes later, a little crowd of excited men was struggling desperately to check a roaring fire that licked up the dry buildings as if they were tinderboxes. For three hours the fight with the flames went on. The wind, which was scarcely breathing when the first blaze was seen, came rushing faster and faster, sweeping the flames first one way, then another, through the heart of the town. Every man and boy in Northport did his best, but all together could do nothing. To throw water on the flames was like sprinkling a furnace; to tear down a building was but to give the flames a quicker chance to leap across. So fierce was the heat that, with the poor appliances at hand, it soon became almost impossible to come close enough to fight the fire at all. The calamity falls with more crushing force because of the high rates of insurance that have been maintained. In hardly any instance has property been insured for more than a fraction of its value, and for dozens of losses there will be no insurance at all.