Great Fire of 1873
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Great Fire of 1873 was a major fire which swept through the downtown of
Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the list of cities in Oregon, largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, Columbia rivers, Portland is ...
on August 2, 1873, destroying twenty-two blocks on the west side of the
Willamette River The Willamette River ( ) is a major tributary of the Columbia River, accounting for 12 to 15 percent of the Columbia's flow. The Willamette's main stem is long, lying entirely in northwestern Oregon in the United States. Flowing northward b ...
, including along Yamhill and Morrison Streets. A mix of mansions, tenements, and commercial property were destroyed. Many businesses were not insured, and many others were only partially insured.


Timeline

At 4:20 am on morning of August 2, 1873, a fire started on First Street near Taylor, at the Hurgren & Shindler furniture store. Fueled by the oils and varnishes in the store, the fire burned hot and spread rapidly. By 4:40 am, just twenty minutes after its start, the fire had spread a block and the nearby Metropolitan Hotel was a complete loss. The Portland volunteer fire department responded along with fire companies from Salem, Vancouver, and Oregon City. Salem's fire company came 52 miles by train within 57 minutes. When the Salem department arrived seven blocks had been consumed but they were able to stop the northern progress of the fire. The wind, however, spread the fire in all other directions and soon twelve blocks were engulfed in flames and the city water supply was failing. As the other departments arrived there were only a total of 7 engines to contend with a fire half a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide. As fast as the fire could be suppressed in one direction, it would break it in another. The fire finally stopped on its own due to lack of material to burn.


Aftermath

Among the losses were 2 Engine Houses, 2 Sash Factories, 3 Foundries, 4 Mills, 5 Hotels, 100 retail stores, and 250 dwellings. 150 families were homeless and encamped on the city park. One estimate for the economic impact of the fire is that the fire caused $1.3 million in damage. Mayor
Henry Failing Henry Failing (January 17, 1834 – November 8, 1898) was a banker, and one of the leading businessmen of the Pacific Northwest of the United States. He was one of Portland, Oregon's earliest residents, and served as that city's mayor in tw ...
chaired a relief committee and put in $10,000 himself. The city "shunned" financial aid offered from San Francisco and the East Coast, and instead used local resources. Rebuilding was delayed by the
Panic of 1873 The Panic of 1873 was a financial crisis that triggered an economic depression in Europe and North America that lasted from 1873 to 1877 or 1879 in France and in Britain. In Britain, the Panic started two decades of stagnation known as the ...
, then was in "full swing" by 1878. The downtown area shifted to the west after the fire. The present-day Portland Yamhill Historic District, listed on the
National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...
in 1975, includes the northern part of the 22-block area. One surviving building is the Northrup and Blossom-Fitch Building (1858) from before the fire. The district includes 17
Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian ...
-style buildings built between 1878 and 1887. With .


Controversy

In December 1872, 8 months prior, there had been another fire which started in a Chinese laundry facility on the waterfront along Front Street. This fire destroyed several blocks in the areas of Front and Morrison streets. The official cause of the 1873 fire is undetermined, however many people of the time believed it was started by anti-Chinese arsonists. The areas of the 1872 fire had yet to be rebuilt and acted as a buffer for the fire of 1873.


References

{{reflist 1873 fires in the United States 1873 in Oregon 19th century in Portland, Oregon Fires in Oregon History of Portland, Oregon