The Fire-Burned Tax Records
City Treasurer Krug struggles to process property deeds because the original delinquent tax rolls were lost in the Great Seattle Fire.
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.
Application has been made to City Treasurer Krug for deeds to a large number of pieces of property by purchasers of certificates of sale at the delinquent tax sales for the years 1884-1887. The delinquencies amount to over $20,000. However, the delinquent rolls were destroyed in the great fire of June 6, 1889, and the treasurer's office has no record of the sales. The only surviving record is a copy in the possession of the abstract concern of Osborne, Tromper Co., Inc. Mr. Krug is endeavoring to locate the current owners to give them an opportunity to redeem the property rather than issue the deeds and trigger serious litigation.
“The delinquent rolls, however, were destroyed in the great fire of June 6, 1889, and the city treasurer's office has no record of the sales.”
The 'Great Fire' of 1889 remains the foundational rupture of Seattle history, here manifesting in the mundane but critical bureaucratic nightmare of lost title records. It reflects a recurring theme of how urban disaster necessitates the reliance on private, non-governmental record-keeping to sort out civic ownership.
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