Midnight Fire at the Mill
A sawmill employee barely escapes a late-night cabin blaze, losing his winter supplies to the flames.
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.
One of the representative characters of the place, Mr. A. H. Piden, on Monday night, Oct. 22, came near being suffocated and burned to death. He was awakened about midnight to find himself nearly stifled with the smoke in his cabin, and before he really had time to see about him, he felt the fire burning his bed, underclothing, as well as the bare flesh. His cabin was fortunately close to the water, and running himself into it, everything was speedily drenched with water. The damage was chiefly confined to his clothing and bedding, and amounted to between fifty and seventy-five dollars.
“He was awakened about midnight to find himself nearly stifled with the smoke in his cabin, and before he really had time to see about him, he felt the fire burning his bed.”
The precarious nature of worker housing in mill towns—often flimsy, isolated, and lacking fire safety—was a constant struggle in the late 19th century. Today, Snohomish and the broader region continue to grapple with the legacy of housing instability, though the fires we face now are more often matters of rising costs than burning cabins.
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