The Night the Post Building Smoldered
A pre-dawn fire nearly claims the offices of the Post-Intelligencer, revealing the stark difference between fire safety in brick versus wooden structures.
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.
At about 3:30 o'clock yesterday morning, just after the Post-Intelligencer had gone to press, smoke was seen issuing from a front window of the second floor of the Post building. A man who was in conversation with Officer Welch first saw the light and gave the alarm. Mr. Albert Caller, the mailing clerk, and Mr. A. Carter, the pressman of this paper, who were still in the building, threw seventeen Hayward hand grenades on the flames, without diminishing the fire in the least. A general alarm was sounded, and the department turned out very quickly. The fire originated in the office of Guy C. Phinney, from a wooden coal oil case, which was used for an ash receptacle. The floor was burned through, and two or three partitions were burned and charred. When the building was constructed, several inches of earth was placed between the floors to deaden the sound, and this prevented the fire from coming through to the first floor. Ten minutes after the first stream was carried to the second floor, the fire was under control. The building, which is owned by W. S. Ladd of Portland, was damaged to the extent of about $400, and is insured. In contrast to a wooden frame structure, which would have sparked a panicked evacuation, the brick construction of the Post building held firm, and not one of the eight tenants moved out or attempted to. These feelings of security were amply justified; similar confidence is exercised by insurance companies, who put it into practice by marking down their rates for brick buildings to one-fourth of what is charged for wooden ones.
“The difference between being in a well-built brick house and a frame structure, in the event of a fire, was illustrated by the fire in the Post building yesterday.”
This 1885 account of a downtown fire highlights the early adoption of fire-resistant construction as a civic necessity in Seattle. The contrast drawn between 'safe' brick and 'dangerous' wooden structures mirrors current debates over densification and building code standards in modern Seattle, where fire resilience and housing stability remain inextricably linked.
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