A Smallpox Quarantine in a Snowbound Hotel
A burst pipe left six quarantined smallpox patients without water as Tacoma's snowstorm shut down plumbers, coal deliveries and the Northern Pacific.
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.
TACOMA, Feb. 2.—The most trying effect of the snowstorm is the failure of the water supply in the Lawrence House, in which six persons are quarantined on account of smallpox having broken out there a few days ago. The police are in a quandary. Plumbers cannot be allowed to mend the burst pipes or go into the quarantined house. Today snow was melted for the inmates, and if the weather does not continue to moderate, it is feared the quarantined persons will grow desperate and attempt to escape. The thermometer has risen to 30 degrees above and indications are that it will grow warmer. Nearly all the rubber boots in the city have been sold. Next to the plumbers, the rubber goods dealers are reaping the greatest harvest as the result of the storm. Only one or two dealers have any coal, and the Northern Pacific refuses to haul any, saying it can only handle perishable goods and live stock under the circumstances.
“Plumbers cannot be allowed to mend the burst pipes or go into the quarantined house.”
A quarantined hotel without water is a reminder that public-health emergencies are also infrastructure emergencies. Extreme weather still exposes the same fragile connections—pipes, deliveries, emergency access—that Tacoma confronted in 1893.
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