The Seattle Fire That Almost Burned the Town
An incendiary blaze at the old Coffee and Elbow Saloon nearly consumed downtown Seattle in a narrow escape that left hundreds of men standing by with buckets.
Seattle. — About 1 o'clock on the night of the 10th inst., most of the town was awakened by the ringing of the church bells, and on looking out saw the heavens lit up with the lurid glare of a large fire. The scene of the conflagration was the old Coffee and Elbow Saloon in the Shuttle and Beds. An incendiary undoubtedly had set the place on fire, and it and the two buildings adjoining were soon an mass of smoldering ruins, bricks and cinders. Though the wind carried the sparks directly over the business portion of the town, no other buildings were ignited, and Seattle escaped very narrowly what at one time threatened to be a most sweeping visit of destruction. No attempt was made to extinguish the fire in the burning buildings, as it would have been utterly futile; but hundreds of men stood by with ladders, buckets and axes, to keep it from spreading to the buildings nearby. The buildings were unoccupied save by one man as a lodging place, and being flimsy structures in an undesirable portion of the town, the entire loss would not exceed in amount $750.—Tribune.
This 1876 account captures Seattle’s precarious early days, where wooden structures and narrow streets made fire a constant existential threat. The 'Shuttle and Beds' district was a notorious red-light and boarding area, highlighting how the city's rough edges were often concentrated in specific, vulnerable zones—a pattern of urban development and risk that echoes in modern discussions about historic preservation and fire codes.
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