A Costly Slip: The Sink That Flooded Pioneer Square
A plumber’s oversight at a dry goods shop leads to a deluge that ruins thousands of dollars in stock, exposing the fragility of Seattle’s burgeoning commercial district.
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.
Huber & Baker, proprietors of a dry goods and furnishing store in Odonette's new brick block on Front Avenue, have been the victims of a piece of carelessness. Over the center of their store floor, there is a large sink to drain a fountain in the room above the store. Some person left the water running in this fixture, which filled and ran over all at once, flooding the room and running through the floor and plaster ceiling, completely saturating their stock of costly goods with water. The first knowledge the firm had of the damage was given by Mr. Baker, one of the owners, who sleeps in the store. He was awakened about 2:00 o'clock in the morning by the sound of dripping water, and, on investigation, he hurried to his store to find everything drenched through and the stock damaged not less than $2,000. The proprietors have an inventory of the stock and are ascertaining what legal remedy they have, if any.
“He was awakened about 2:00 o'clock in the morning by the sound of dripping water, and, on investigation, he hurried to his store to find everything drenched through.”
This 1885 plumbing disaster highlights the growing pains of early Seattle, where rapid development often outpaced infrastructure reliability. Today, while building codes have evolved to prevent such negligence, the fear of water damage and its impact on the city’s thriving retail core remains a constant, albeit modern, concern for local business owners.
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