The Great Northern Hotel Burned to the Ground in Mount Vernon
A three-story frame hotel near the depot was gone within minutes, and twenty-five lodgers barely escaped with their lives.
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.
MOUNT VERNON, July 17.—[Special.]—The Great Northern hotel, a three-story frame building, was burned to the ground at 2 o'clock this morning, the occupants and lodgers barely escaping with their lives. The building stood near the Great Northern depot and cost about $4,000. Twenty-five lodgers were in the house, which was owned and run by C. H. Patterson. Eli [surname unclear], a Scandinavian weaver, discovered smoke in his room and gave the alarm. The flames swept through the building quickly.
“The flames swept through the building quickly.”
Wood-frame hotels doubled as homes for workers and travelers, making fires both a property loss and a housing emergency. Mount Vernon's depot district, like much of Puget Sound, was rebuilt repeatedly after such losses.
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