Clayton Burned: A Brick-Plant Town Loses Its Whole Business Block
A Tuesday afternoon blaze took Clayton's entire business section on the Spokane Falls & Northern, including the Washington Brick & Lime Co. plant — a $100,000 loss, and another Inland Empire town left to rebuild.
Another Stevens County town has been practically wiped out by fire. Clayton, on the S. F. N., was visited by a destructive fire on Tuesday afternoon, and practically all of its business section was wiped out, including the plant of the Washington Brick and Lime Co. The total loss will be fully $100,000.
“Practically all of its business section wiped out... The total loss will be fully $100,000.”
Clayton was a company town built on brick and lime, and in one afternoon its whole commercial core was gone — the same story the Miner was telling about Springdale, whose newspaper had just come back from its own fire. Inland Northwest towns built of milled lumber and lit by coal oil burned to the ground with a regularity that made 'wiped out by fire' almost a standing column. Today Clayton is a small unincorporated community on the old rail grade, and the brick plant that anchored it is a memory.
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