130 years ago: Seattle's Great Fire ignites in cabinet shop, consumes city

A pot of glue was being heated up on a stove inside the Clairmont and Company cabinet shop in downtown Seattle when all hell broke loose 130 years ago.

It caught fire, and a worker inside tried to put it out with water. But, just like what happens when water hits flaming oil, the hot glue erupted.

Flaming bits of glue flew about the room before 3 p.m. on June 6, 1889, landing on wood shavings spread around the floor. The tinder ignited a blaze that spread through the wooden building located at what is now the corner of First Avenue and Madison Street.

The building was quickly engulfed. The fire tore through the city on a strong northerly wind -- a city that had just endured a dry season. The city's small band of volunteer firefighters got to work, but used up all available public and private water supplies.

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The blaze continued to grow until it had torched about 120 acres, 130 years ago today. The final embers finally fizzled out around 3 a.m., after reaching the tide flats south of where T-Mobile Park now sits.

No people died, but an estimated 1 million rats were consumed by fire. Thousands lost their homes, and about 5,000 men lost their jobs. Total losses were in the millions of dollars, up to $20 million by some estimates.

The event became known as Seattle's Great Fire. Homes and businesses in 25 city blocks were destroyed. Most buildings were made of wood, but even 10 brick buildings were destroyed in the heat of the blaze. The city was in ruins.

But the fire that started in the cabinet shop (not a paint shop, as once reported) laid the groundwork for what the city would grow to become.

The day after the fire, citizens got to work. They asked Mayor Robert Moran to require new buildings to be built out of brick. They wanted wider streets, a city-owned water system and a bona fide fire department. Two hundred special deputies were sworn in to help combat looting, and the city spent two weeks under martial law.

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A little over four months after the fire, the city's first fire department was approved. Gardner Kellogg was named the first fire chief and 32 men were hired as firefighters.

During the first year of re-construction, 150 brick buildings were erected, some of which formed what is now Pioneer Square. The corner of First Avenue and Madison Street now houses the Old Federal Building, with a bronze plaque indicating that was where the Great Fire began. Wooden pipes were eliminated and more fire hydrants were added.

Streets in some areas of the city were also raised by up to 22 feet, making the city more level and creating the infamous underground which visitors can tour today.

Before the fire, Seattle's population had been growing by an estimated 1,000 residents per month. The growth was slowed by the fire, but by no means stopped, growing to 43,000 residents from 25,000 in a year. Lumber and coal were the city's primary industries, but fishing, wholesale trade, shipbuilding and shipping also contributed.

The catastrophe that, in many ways, lead to the creation of the Seattle we know today was not a unique one. New York City had its own "Great Fire" in 1835 which razed nearly 700 buildings, for example, and the Chicago Fire of 1871 destroyed thousands of buildings and killed an estimated 300 people, according to The History Channel. Just in Washington state, the business districts of 20 towns were destroyed by fires between 1882 and 1928.

What you see now is the result of how those cities rebuilt.

Unless otherwise cited, historical information for this article was sourced from SeattlePI archives, HistoryLink.org essays, city archives and the University of Washington digital collection.

Producer Natalie Guevara can be contacted at natalie.guevara@seattlepi.com. Follow her on Twitter. Find more from Natalie on her author page.