The Great Seattle Balding Summit
After the Great Fire of 1889, fifty-two insurance adjusters gathered to assess the wreckage—and accidentally became the most famous bald-headed group on the Northwest coast.
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.
Insurance adjusters to the number of fifty-two were picturesquely posed in front of the Merchants' National bank at 3:30 o'clock yesterday afternoon for the purpose of having their photographs taken. The bold, fearless adjusters stood in front of the camera three deep. Those on the front row were seated on a bench improvised out of scantling and oyster cans. The second row stood on the pavement. The third row stood on a second bench made out of scantling. When the photographer was about to make the first attempt he remarked: 'Gentlemen, you will take better pictures with your hats off.' Instantly fifty-two chapeaus were doffed and the spectators were treated to the finest static collection of bald heads ever gathered together on the Northwest coast. The photographer took three shots at the group and then the roomers broke up.
“Gentlemen, you will take better pictures with your hats off.”
While Seattle’s 1889 Great Fire leveled the downtown core, the resilient, dark humor of those left behind—like these men laughing at their own expense while cataloging the city's ruins—remains a classic Seattle archetype. Today’s citizens still grapple with the aftermath of sudden urban disasters and the complex, bureaucratic machinery of insurance claims that dictate how a city gets rebuilt.
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