The Tragedy of the Main Street Inferno
A catastrophic fire destroys a block of historic Walla Walla, leaving two men dead in the ruins.
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.
A fire in Walla Walla, W.T. last night destroyed property valued at $100,000; insurance, $45,000. The remains of two men were found in the ruins, one named Bell and the other unknown. The fire occurred on Main street, between Third and Fourth. The principal losses were: Scawarx, building and saloon, $8,000; Jacob Tatcher, groceries, $2,000; J. H. Cox, second-hand dealer, $1,500; Z. K. Straight, jeweler, $14,000; I. Kasier, dry goods, $14,000; Himmons, books, $1,500; J. Bauer, tobacco, $13,000; City Hotel, Jones, $5,000; Tatcher, tobacco, $1,000; and City Hall, $10,000.
“The remains of two men were found in the ruins, one named Bell and the other unknown.”
Massive downtown fires were common in the rapid-growth era of 1880s Washington, often revealing the precarity of life in wooden-built boomtowns. Today, Walla Walla’s historic Main Street stands as a revitalized hub, yet the story remains a grim reminder of how quickly civic centers could be wiped out by single sparks in a time of limited fire suppression.
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