The City That Refused to Stay Burnt
After the Great Spokane Fire of 1889, civic leaders rejected the urge to build cheaply, choosing instead to construct a permanent, iron-and-stone metropolis fueled by the river's immense power.
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.
After Spokane was destroyed by fire in 1889, the question that presented itself to the people was how should the city be rebuilt? There was a powerful feeling that the foundation should be laid for a large city, and that the buildings should not be such as would have to be pulled down in three or four years in order that larger and better ones could take their places. There was a universal and profound belief in the city's future, founded on its tributary resources, its manufacturing advantages, and its superior position. Building operations began in earnest about March 20, 1890, and the work wrought from that time until the close of the year was simply marvelous. We have spent $6,000,000 on new buildings: an opera-house, a post-office building, public school buildings, an exposition building, and a vast number of business buildings, from three to six stories high. The secret of Spokane's advantage as a manufacturing city lies in the water power of the Spokane river. We have an available 30,000 horse-power the year round. At the present time, all the flouring mills of the city, all the sawmills, all the rapid transit lines, the electric lighting plant, and forty electric motors are run by water power, and yet we are employing but 3,000 out of our total available force. We have in fact but made a beginning.
“There was a powerful feeling that the foundation should be laid for a large city, and that the buildings should not be such as would have to be pulled down in three or four years.”
Spokane’s 1890 decision to invest in 'permanent' infrastructure following a catastrophic fire mirrors the ongoing contemporary debate in Seattle: whether to build for immediate, low-cost capacity or for the multi-generational needs of a growing urban center. The city's reliance on the Spokane River for cheap, renewable energy also serves as an early predecessor to the regional dependence on public hydroelectric power.
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