Cottage Home Reduced to Ashes
A summer resort property at Lillewaup Falls is destroyed by a mysterious overnight fire, leaving guests and owners scrambling to save what they could.
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 beautiful Cottage Home at the Lillewaup Falls summer resort, recently sold to Mrs. Dora Wells, was completely destroyed by fire, with all its contents, on the morning of the 10th. Mrs. Wells, who was sleeping alone in the house, was awakened by stifling smoke. She seized a tin box containing valuable papers and escaped through a rear window. Once outside, she thought of her pet birds, a white sulphur-crested parrot and a canary, and, bursting in a door, she rushed in and saved them. Neighbors and staff hurried to the scene, but flames were bursting from every door and window, and it was impossible to save any of the contents, which included valuable furniture, musical instruments, paintings, clothing and silverware. It is difficult to account for the origin of the fire.
“Once outside she thought of her pet birds, a white sulphur-crested parrot and a canary, and, bursting in a door, she rushed in and saved them.”
Lillewaup, once a bustling destination for early tourists on Hood Canal, remains a quiet reminder of the transient nature of early development. Like many properties of that era, the 'Cottage Home' was lost to the common danger of wood-stove fires, a frequent headline in turn-of-the-century Washington.
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