The Handsomest House in Snoqualmie Burned While Its Owner Was in Seattle
O. D. Guilfoil learns by telegram that his family fled a two-story showplace as it burned; the $7,000 loss was uninsured.
O. D. Guilfoil, of Snoqualmie, who has been in the city since last Monday, received a telegram last night at 8 o'clock saying that his residence at Snoqualmie had been entirely burned, and that his wife and two children had a narrow escape in getting out. Mr. Guilfoil places his loss at $7,000, with no insurance.
The residence, which was the handsomest in that section of the country, was a two-story frame house, with all modern improvements and very handsomely furnished. It always attracted the attention of strangers passing through the town.
“His wife and two children had a narrow escape in getting out.”
A house fire could wipe out a family's entire capital in an era before modern fire codes and universal insurance. The Guilfoil loss reminds us how thin the margin was in Puget Sound's small towns—and how a telegram could deliver catastrophe from a hundred miles away.
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