Midnight Fire at the Northern Hotel
A fire breaks out in the kitchen of the Northern Hotel, sending guests fleeing into the halls in their nightclothes.
Fire broke out in the kitchen on the top floor of the Northern hotel building about 3:30 o'clock this morning and within a few minutes flames were bursting through the rear windows. Some of the guests on the third floor rang the annunciator bell into the office, and at the same time began piling out of bed into the halls and through the house warning the other guests and the servants. All hastened down into the hall and the office in a miscellaneous assortment of clothing, and no one was injured. An eye witness says that it seemed to him that there must have been a great deal of inflammable matter in the room. In the fire escape opening to the rear was a large box. Just as the firemen reached the escape the box blazed up furiously. There was a hissing that could have been heard for several blocks and flames gushed forth as from a volcano. The building and furniture are owned by the Terry estate and A. A. Denny. It is insured. It is leased to T. R. Hedges.
“There was a hissing that could have been heard for several blocks and flames gushed forth as from a volcano.”
The Northern Hotel was a fixture of early Seattle, and fires were a constant, terrifying threat in the city's wooden-heavy downtown. The mention of the Terry estate and A. A. Denny highlights the concentration of property ownership in the hands of the city's founding families.
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