The Seattle Baker Who Stopped a Midnight Inferno
A quick-thinking baker at the Queen City Bakery spotted smoke rising from the Denny Block, narrowly averting a major downtown catastrophe.
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 1 o'clock Monday morning, the baker in the Queen City Bakery saw smoke rising from a room in the basement of the Denny Block, under M. Finkelstein's American tailoring establishment. The room was occupied by Mr. Yillbach as an upholstering shop, but had been locked up for two weeks. The baker rushed to the rear door and, seeing a blaze in among a lot of rubbish in the middle of the floor, smashed in the door and shouted 'Fire! Fire!' at the top of his voice. The watchman at the Commercial Mill heard the alarm and at once attached the company's hose to the mill plug and, in less time than it takes to write it, had a stream of Spring Hill water playing on the flames. The prompt discovery of the fire and just as prompt action on the part of the Commercial Mill watchman averted one of the most terrible conflagrations which would of necessity have been accompanied by the loss of life. The origin of the fire remains a mystery. The floor and rubbish had been saturated with coal oil, as those who examined the grounds claim, and the general impression is that it was set on fire.
“The prompt discovery of the fire and just as prompt action on the part of the Commercial Mill watchman averted one of the most terrible conflagrations.”
Fire safety and basement maintenance in historic masonry buildings like the Denny Block remain a consistent concern in downtown Seattle. The reliance on neighborhood watchfulness—or in this case, a watchful baker—mirrors the ongoing civic need for residents to serve as the first line of defense in urban density.
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