The Great Seattle Fire of June 6, 1889, was a significant turning point in the city's history and changed both the physical and political landscapes. The fire was accidentally started in a paint and woodwork shop at Madison Street and Front Street (now First Avenue) at 2:30 p.m., and over the course of the next 18 hours, swept a southward across 100 acres of Seattle's business district and waterfront. The fire left little standing in its wake, consuming buildings, docks, wooden sidewalks, and anything else combustible. Losses from the conflagration were estimated at $20 million.

The issue of The Daily Times pictured here was published six days after the fire, and includes the headline: "OUT OF THE ASHES, New Seattle is Rapidly Arising, Merchants Already Open and Ready for Business." Despite their headquarters' destruction in the fire, the Times staff was already operating out of a tent on the northeast corner of Second and Yesler, the site where their new building was already under construction.

The Seattle Times was begun in 1886 by a group of local business men who wanted an alternative to the radically anti-Chinese newspaper, the Seattle Call. Within a year the Call and another small paper had been absorbed into the Seattle Press. Both the Press and the Times survived the Great Fire and when purchased by the same owner in 1891, were combined into the city's only evening paper, and renamed the Press-Times. Long-time owner Alden J. Blethen bought the paper in 1896 and dropped Press from the name, thus establishing the paper that continues to serve the city as of 2019.

Caption information source: https://www.Seattle.gov/cityarchives/exhibits-and-education/digital-document-libraries/the-great-Seattle-fire-of-1889
Caption information source: "Newspapers of Washington Territory," by Edmond S. Meany, The Washington Historical Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 3 (1923, July), pp. 186-200. Retrieved from https://journals.lib.washington.edu/index.php/WHQ/article/view/6452/5526