Spokane Falls Fire of 1889 Destroys Thirty Blocks
A detailed account of the massive conflagration that leveled thirty blocks of Spokane, leaving thousands homeless and causing an estimated $12 million in damages.
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.
The wires again were called into requisition Sunday night to chronicle the burning of the business portion of Spokane Falls. It originated at a quarter past 6 o’clock p.m. in the roof of a lodging house on Railroad Avenue. A dead calm prevailed at this time, but the heat created a current of air, and in less than half an hour the whole block was enveloped in flames. Mayor Forth ordered that the buildings be blown up with giant powder to check the spread of the fire. The fire extended from Railroad Avenue northward to the river, and from Lincoln street east to Washington street. Thirty blocks were totally destroyed. Only one casualty has been heard of so far, the victim being Charles Davis, a civil engineer from Billings, Mont., who leaped from a second-story window in the Arlington building.
“Looking upward a broad and mighty river of flame seemed lined against the jet-black sky.”
The Great Spokane Fire of 1889 was a defining moment for Eastern Washington, leading to a complete architectural and infrastructure overhaul. It serves as a reminder of how quickly wooden frontier boomtowns could be erased from the map.
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