On October 17, 1935, fire breaks out in the carpenter shop of the Tacoma Hotel. The flames spread rapidly through the old building and prove impossible to extinguish. All of the 128 registered guest are saved either by hotel staff or firefighters. There are no fatalities, but during the chaos three guests, three firefighters, and one hotel employee suffer injuries. The Tacoma Hotel is a total loss and is never rebuilt.
Luxury at the End of the Line
The Tacoma Hotel, designed by Architect Sanford White (1853-1906) of the renowned New York architectural firm McKim, Mead and White, opened for business on August 8, 1884. The sprawling, brick, five-story, 185-room structure, located on a bluff overlooking Commencement Bay on A Street between S 9th and S 10th streets, was of the Victorian style of architecture. Charles B. Wright (1822-1898), head of the Tacoma Land Company, a subsidiary of the Northern Pacific Railroad (NP), was directed by NP's then president, Henry Villard (1835-1900), to construct a luxury hotel for its passengers when that city was chosen to be the railway's terminus in the Pacific Northwest. It was built by Architect William M. Whidden (1857-1929), under Sanford White's personal supervision.
At approximately 6:15 a.m., Thursday, October 17, 1935, fire broke out in the carpentry shop, located in the basement of the Tacoma Hotel, and rapidly spread through the building. Elizabeth Thomas, manager of the hotel's coffee shop on the main floor, noticed smoke welling up through gaps in the flooring where a cabinet once stood. She immediately called the front desk and advised George B. Woodbridge (1865-1947), the night clerk, who dispatched two bellhops to the basement to investigate the smoke's origin. They returned without delay, reporting that the entire basement appeared to be ablaze.
Woodbridge triggered a fire-alarm call box in the lobby and then telephoned John Frank Hickey (1879-1944), the resident manager and owner of the hotel, with the dire news. He then began spreading the alarm by phoning every occupied room, but the power lines soon burned through and the switchboard stopped working. Woodbridge told the night porter, Henry Yamaguchi, to enlist every available employee and knock on doors and spread the alarm. Hickey came to the hotel lobby and remained there after the electricity went out and helped guests to evacuate.
About the same time, Arthur E. Wells, 54, an employee in the hotel's bakery in the north wing of the basement, smelled smoke and went to investigate. Entering the carpentry shop that was adjacent to the bakery, he saw fire consuming a work bench. Wells attempted to extinguish the blaze with a hose, but it was already too late. He ran to a fire-alarm call box and triggered another alarm. The fire spread rapidly though the basement and up the elevator shaft to the upper floors. Within a short time, the old structure was fully involved.
Quick Response
By happenstance, headquarters of the Tacoma Fire Department, 823 A Street (now Firemen's Park), was located adjacent to the Tacoma Hotel. Tacoma Fire Chief Emory N. Whitaker (1881-1958) responded to the call within minutes of receiving the alarm with every firefighter and apparatus at the station. The responders were greeted by guests shouting for help from the windows on the upper floors. Chief Whitaker immediately declared it a three-alarm fire which brought 10 engine companies, two truck companies, and some 50 additional firefighters to the conflagration. While streams of water were poured into the hotel, firefighters directed guests down the exterior fire escapes and rescued numerous others using aerial and pompier ladders and safety nets. Some firefighters prowled the lower-floor corridors wearing oxygen masks and led guests to safety. To prevent other fires from breaking out on the waterfront, city Fireboat No. 1 sprayed water onto the nearby docks and warehouses being bombarded with burning debris.
Meanwhile, Tacoma Police Chief Harold P. Bird (1895-1971) had dispatched every available officer to the scene of the fire to maintain crowd control. Thousands of spectators had gathered to watch the famous landmark burn. Lines of state patrol and city police officers kept the populous well away from the imminent danger of falling masonry.
At approximately 8 a.m., a boiler in the basement exploded, demolishing a large portion of the hotel's interior and sending burning debris into the air. The blaze was uncontrollable and firefighters could only watch as the building slowly disintegrated. A while later, the roof collapsed and the brick walls began tumbling down, signaling an end to the disaster. Once the wreckage had cooled sufficiently, the remains of the building's unsupported walls were brought down with dynamite. So much water had been poured onto the fire that the city's civil engineers feared the steep clay bank adjoining the property would give way and engulf several sets of NP railroad tracks 100 feet below.
On the positive side, it was a triumph for the Tacoma Fire Department. All 128 guests had been evacuated from the burning building without any fatalities. Seven people were injured by the blaze, none seriously. Three guests, three firefighters, and one hotel employee sustained burns and suffered from smoke inhalation.
Based on Arthur Well's eyewitness account, fire investigators formally concluded the blaze had originated in the basement carpentry shop. The actual cause of the fire couldn't be determined. The probable cause, however, was believed to be the spontaneous combustion of improperly stored flammable materials such as oil or paint soaked rags.
Never Rebuilt
Frank Hickey, owner of the Tacoma Hotel, immediately announced to the press that he would replace it with a more modern building. The loss of the hotel was estimated to be $500,000. In the meantime, Hickey resumed business across the street from the site in a smaller brick building known as the Tacoma Hotel Annex. The charred remains of the Tacoma Hotel were leveled and removed in preparation for the new construction. But the insurance coverage fell far short of the amount needed to build a new hotel and the project never came to fruition.
The hotel property remained vacant for a time and then became an automobile parking lot and gas station called the Totem. The 80-room, five-story, Tacoma Hotel (annex), at 904-906 A Street, stayed in business for nearly four more decades before closing its doors. Demolished in the mid 1970s, it had been just another mid-range service city hotel, not the finest guest house north of San Francisco as the original Tacoma Hotel was once considered. The venerable Tacoma Hotel symbolized the age when railroad barons once ruled the American landscape.
In 1986, the Frank Russell Building (now known as the State Farm Building), 909 A Street, was built on the site of the original Tacoma Hotel. Designed by architect Wyatt Stapper of Seattle, it is a 12-story, granite and glass, commercial building of the architectural style called Modernism. The site of the Tacoma Hotel Annex has been converted into another car park.
