Downtown Wenatchee Burned in 1909 – 07/13/2024
Photo caption: The fire ignited in a barn behind Emil Frank’s Central Market on North Mission
Street, and soon spread to nearby buildings. Source: Wenatchee Valley Museum & Cultural Center #004-3-1.
Written by Chris Rader
On the hot, windy afternoon of Tuesday, July 6, 1909, folks in Wenatchee looked up to see a huge column of smoke coming from the downtown business district. A fire had broken out in an old stable behind Emil Frank’s Central Market and spread rapidly to adjacent wooden buildings. Soon the conflagration laid waste to almost the entire block bounded by Mission Street, Wenatchee Avenue, Palouse Street and Orondo Avenue. It burned hot for three hours, from 2:30 p.m. on, and then continued to smolder until heavy overnight rains doused the remaining embers.
It was originally thought that boys playing with fireworks in the old barn caused the fire – but police chief Nate Inscho later determined that cigar ashes were to blame. Three horses and three sheep owned by Central Market perished in the fire. (The sheep were slated for butchering; in addition to the Wenatchee grocery, Frank owned a thriving meat market in Leavenworth.) No other deaths were reported, and only one injury; fireman Harry Miller’s hand was badly cut by a slab of broken glass.
Wenatchee photographer Tom Gagnon captured this image of the July 6, 1909 fire at its worst. Wenatchee Valley Museum & Cultural Center #85-0-14.
News of the blaze spread through the lower Wenatchee Valley. Throughout the day, a reported 3,500 people witnessed the fire, including some who rode the train down from Cashmere to watch. Firemen considered dynamiting some buildings to stop the spreading flames fanned by a stiff breeze, but the flames raced from one building to another too quickly.
At Jack O’Connor’s livery stable, just to the south of Central Market, the horses were guided to safety but all sleighs and buggies were lost. The fire spread to Louis Vondell’s blacksmith shop and the Crescent building, where W.E. Morton sold toys, books, notions and confectionery. Flames leapt across Mission to the west side of the street and quickly reduced to ruins the city fire station and bell tower.
Wenatchee Valley Museum & Cultural Center #85-0-21.
The fire then ignited the rear of the Woods and Lewis building. Apparently Rufus Woods, publisher of The Wenatchee Daily World, had intended to move his operations there from a small office on Wenatchee Avenue. “Though he had ordered insurance for the wooden structure, he had not yet signed the papers,” historian John Gellatly later wrote. “As the flames were eating their way toward his property, …Rufus was hustling around in search of the insurance agent in hopes of getting his name on the dotted line.”1 (John Gellatly, A History of Wenatchee, 1964??) Alas, he failed to sign the contract and suffered a complete loss on the building. (He later built a brick structure, the Woods Building, that still stands on Mission Street.) Four tenants with small businesses in the building, none with insurance, suffered losses.
Firemen with their pump truck and long hoses were unable to stop the massive flames from consuming the Cottage Hotel. Its owner, Mrs. Ella Baker, carried $1,000 insurance but the building and its contents were totally destroyed, a loss of $9,000 (about $300,000 today).
The Cottage Hotel, left, was a total loss – as was the city fire tower, above. Wenatchee Valley Museum #004-3-2.
The Farmers’ Telephone and Telegraph Company, Wenatchee Electric Company and Entiat Power Company suffered damages in the destruction of wires and poles. Power lines to the city’s new pumping plant on the Columbia River were destroyed, and so the pumps did not work. Afraid of running out of water to fight the flames, Fire Chief Charles Throw turned to W.T. Clark of the Highline Canal Company. Clark gave permission for water from the irrigation canal to be diverted into the city reservoir – a measure that surely saved many other nearby buildings from catching fire.
Charles Harlin’s meat market, a mostly concrete building at 120 Orondo, is also credited for helping stop the eastward spread of the flames. The rear of the building was wood and was burned to ashes, but the sturdy concrete construction gave no fuel to the fire. Harlin and his employees got most of the meat out, moving it into the Wenatchee Canning Company. The next day they were back in business, working out of the canning company.
After the fire, much of downtown Wenatchee was a smoldering ruin. Wenatchee Valley Museum & Cultural Center #85-0-10.
The newspaper reported that volunteer firemen from Wenatchee, Cashmere and Leavenworth battled the conflagration that afternoon. The next night, a citizens committee arranged for a big dinner for these men (including untrained volunteers who had acted quickly). Two hundred showed up for the dinner at the Great Northern Hotel. When citizens came the following day to pay for the meal, they were told that owner Harry Taylor had phoned in that there would be no charge.
Although not in monetary figures, the devastating June 1909 fire in the business district was considered the greatest blow in history to the town’s economy. It led to changes in city ordinances (prohibiting new construction of wooden buildings downtown) and a beefing up of the Wenatchee Fire Department in manpower, equipment and water access. A horse-drawn ladder rig was purchased for $43,000 and team of horses for $700. The city replaced its burned fire station with another one at 22 South Mission Street; this served until 1929, when the fire department moved into the beige brick Beaux Arts building at Chelan Avenue and Yakima Street. The fire bell was not damaged in the fire, but the bell at the Presbyterian Church was used to summon volunteers until a new tower could be constructed.
SOURCES
- John Gellatly, A History of Wenatchee, 1964.
- Bruce Mitchell, Apple City USA, 1988.
- Wenatchee Daily World, July 6, 7, 8, 1909 and July 3, 1955.
- Wenatchee Republic, July 8 and 15, 1909.
This story was originally published in Confluence Magazine in the Fall edition of 2022. In an effort to preserve these stories, the Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center will be posting these stories on the museum’s official blog.
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