The High Cost of the Great Seattle Rebuild
A six-week-old restaurant is auctioned off for parts, revealing the volatility of life in post-fire Seattle.
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.
Sheriff's Sale! Of the Burlington Restaurant. Rinkertots & Bell will sell on the premises, 813 West Street, Monday, February 23, 1891, at 11 o'clock sharp. Comprising two new ranges with double outfit for the kitchen, also a fine line of crockery, glassware, cutlery; also choice lot of teas and fruits and canned goods, linoleum, Brussels carpets, portieres, stools, engravings, shades, one fine office desk, stationary boiler and pipe and lot of plumbing, sinks; also a lot of granite ware, etc.; also one fine hall safe, with a general outfit for a first-class restaurant. The above goods have been in use only six weeks. Terms of sale, cash.
“The above goods have been in use only six weeks.”
In the frantic, speculative rebuilding boom following the Great Seattle Fire of 1889, new businesses sprouted overnight with high hopes and even higher debt. Today’s Seattle, still defined by rapid physical transformation and the precarity of small businesses against rising overhead, shares this same uneasy rhythm where an ambitious dream can be liquidated in a matter of weeks.
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