Ellensburg fire destroys 200 homes and 10 business blocks on July 4, 1889.

  • By Paula Becker
  • Posted 1/24/2003
  • HistoryLink.org Essay 5111
See Additional Media

On the evening of July 4, 1889, a devastating fire sweeps through Ellensburg, destroying approximately 200 Victorian-era homes and leveling structures on 10 business blocks.

The fire began in a high wind at about 10:30 p.m. in a grocery store and quickly spread to the frame buildings nearby. Despite a valiant effort by townspeople to fight the fire using the town's limited mid-summer water supply, the morning of July 5 saw Ellensburg in ruins. The Ellensburg National Bank and the City Hotel survived the blaze.

A tent city sprang up. Like many towns destroyed by fire, Ellensburg quickly rebuilt, this time using less flammable materials. The arrival of the Northern Pacific Railroad three years earlier meant that building materials could be brought in quickly by rail instead of laboriously by wagon. The demarcation "1889" on many of Ellensburg's historic buildings is a testament to this period of mass reconstruction.


Sources:

George and Jan Roberts, Discovering Historic Washington State (Baldwin Park, CA: Gem Guides Book Company, 1999), 136; Ruth Kirk and Carmela Alexander, Exploring Washington's Past: A Guide To History, Revised Edition (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995), 124; The Ellensburg Washington Community website (http://www.ellensburg-wa.com).


Licensing: This essay is licensed under a Creative Commons license that encourages reproduction with attribution. Credit should be given to both HistoryLink.org and to the author, and sources must be included with any reproduction. Click the icon for more info. Please note that this Creative Commons license applies to text only, and not to images. For more information regarding individual photos or images, please contact the source noted in the image credit.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
Major Support for HistoryLink.org Provided By: The State of Washington | Patsy Bullitt Collins | Paul G. Allen Family Foundation | Museum Of History & Industry | 4Culture (King County Lodging Tax Revenue) | City of Seattle | City of Bellevue | City of Tacoma | King County | The Peach Foundation | Microsoft Corporation, Other Public and Private Sponsors and Visitors Like You