Arson Suspected After Fire Devours the Ballard News
A 2 a.m. blaze destroyed a newspaper plant and several buildings in Ballard; the fire chief’s engine never made it through the roads.
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.
Fire started in the rear of the Jennings building, at the north end of Ballard Avenue, in Ballard, at 2 o’clock yesterday morning, and continued burning until property worth about $3,100 was destroyed.
The Jennings building belonged to A. B. Jennings, of New York, and contained two store rooms and one small room formerly used for a bakery and restaurant. The south store room was occupied by the Ballard News, owned and published by M. D. Donovan. Adjoining the Jennings building on the south was a store and dwelling belonging to A. Boger, of Seattle, and occupied by J. L. Jennett, who kept a candy and cigar store in the store room and resided with his family in the dwelling. The printing plant, files and books of the Ballard News were a total loss, upon which there was no insurance.
Mr. Jennett managed to save his stock and most of his household furniture. The front of Murphy & Connor’s two-story frame building, on the opposite side of the street, was badly scorched and most of the windows were broken. The loss and insurance is as follows:
A. B. Jennings, loss $2,000, insurance $1,000; Ballard News, loss $1,000, no insurance; A. Boger, loss $100; Murphy & Connor, loss $100. Total loss, $3,100.
The fire department did good work as soon as the water was turned on, and succeeded in saving the buildings in the vicinity of the fire. The city water mains were not used, a hose being attached to the Stimson Mill Company’s system of fire protection, which is near the burned buildings.
The fire was evidently the work of an incendiary, who was probably actuated purely by malice. It seems to have started in or near a disused bakery, and there had been no fire in the buildings where the fire started for three months. It looks as if some one wished to destroy the Ballard News, of which Mr. Donovan will endeavor to continue the publication.
Chief Hunt upon being informed by the man who reported the fire that he had authority to call for help sent an engine and hose cart from house No. 4. There were four horses on the engine, but the roads were so bad they could not reach Ballard. The hose cart managed to get through, but too late for service.
“The fire was evidently the work of an incendiary, who was probably actuated purely by malice.”
The Ballard News eventually resumed publication, and Ballard was annexed to Seattle in 1907. Its old downtown is now a historic district where a newspaper-plant fire would be a very different kind of disaster—but the tension between local journalism and bare-knuckle town growth still resonates.
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