Mystery Garage Fire Consumes Maxwell Runabout
A North O Street garage fire claims a $1,000 automobile, leaving owners without insurance and investigators without a cause.
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.
A Maxwell runabout, valued at $1,000, property of John W. Garvin, president of the Commercial Truck company, and the garage of J. L. Garvin, 810 North O Street, in which the machine was kept, were totally destroyed by fire this morning. Neither the building nor the auto were protected by insurance. The cause of the fire is a mystery. There were three gallons of gasoline in the tank of the automobile but, instead of exploding, it spilled over the floor, adding fuel to the flames. The garage was more than fifty feet from the residence of J. L. Garvin, who is John W. Garvin's son, but the heat of the blaze was so intense that grave fears were felt for the safety of the house. Hose company No. 3 and engine company No. 9 responded. Nothing remains of the automobile but a few twisted rods and bars.
“Nothing remains of the automobile but a few twisted rods and bars.”
This incident captures the early era of private automobile ownership in Tacoma, where car fires were newsworthy industrial accidents. The loss of a $1,000 asset without insurance was a significant financial blow to a family in 1910.
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