The Day Seabeck Burned
When the Washington Mill Company caught fire in 1886, a small mill town was leveled in just two hours, leaving over 100 men without work and a local entrepreneur's life's work in ashes.
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 2:30 o'clock on Friday, the alarm was sounded that a pile of lumber had taken fire, and that the workers could not put it out. The mill whistle was sounded, and the Washington Mill, which was running at the time, was shut down immediately. Men hastened to the scene, but by the time they arrived, the hay warehouse was a solid mass of flames. The water facilities were very poor, and but little good could be accomplished with the hose. A bucket brigade was formed and all hands worked faithfully and well, but all to no purpose, as a wind soon rose and the flames ran through the new mill, then the old one, and then through the shops and stores to the wharf. In two hours, a smoldering heap of ruins marked the spot where had stood the Seabeck mill. The burning of the mill throws fully 100 men out of employment, who depend on their daily labor for their bread.
“The burning of the mill throws fully 100 men out of employment, who depend on their daily labor for their bread.”
The total loss of the Seabeck mill reflects the precarious nature of the single-industry 'company towns' that defined Washington's frontier economy. Today, Seattle faces a different kind of economic precarity, where the 'burning' of a local industry is less likely to be literal fire and more likely to be the displacement caused by rapid tech-sector growth and housing market volatility.
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