Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Benton County, Or.) 1900-1909, 1903-03-13
FIRE AT PORTLAND
NEARLY HALF A MILLION DOLLARS
GOES UP In SMOKE.
Very Little Property Is Saved, Owing, to
High Winds and Lack of Water In
cendiary Is Suspected-Four Fires Give
Firemen a Hard Days Work-victoria
Dock Ruin.

Portland, March 11.-Four separate
fires in Portland yesterday Knocked al
the efforts of the toiling fremen and
destroyed property to the value of near.
ly $500, 900. -
It seems reasonably certain that two,
and possibly all, of the confagrations,
were of incendiary origin, and that
hidden in the swaying crowds that
watched the leaping flames a pyro-
maniac gazed gleefully at the destruc-
tioa he had wrought.
So certain are the local representa-
tives of the big insurance companies
that an incendiary is deliberately at
tempting to burn down the docks which
line the river front that they yesterday
informed the owners of the various
wharves that, unless watchmen were
at once employed to patrol the proper
ty, the companies would cancel their
insurance policies.
The first alarm was turned in at $3.50
" ClOCh yO6GCIOof hOIuluRs 4AO 1851.
dence of William Faber.' at the corner
of Market and Eleventh streets, was in
flames, and before the fremen could
extinguish the fire, the building was
completely gutted.
Before the department had left the
smoldering embers of this handsome
home, an alarm was sounded for a
fierce confagration in Lower Albina.,
at the corner of Mississippi avenue and
Russell street. Here also the flames,
famed to white heat by the driving
gale, laughed at the weak streams that
dribbIed from the nozzles of the fire.
men, and while Chief Campbell cursed
the fate which babe him draw water to
fight raging fire through tiny water
main, the fire sent property valued at
s25, ZOO whirling skywards in smoke.
At 1920 O'Clock in the morning the
frefghters, wearied with a night OF
facing seething flames and strangling
smoke, were called to combat the ferc-
est conhagration of them all, fire at
the Victoria dock, where the fierce
heat on one side and the hurrying river
on the other prevented the fremen.
from occupying any vantage ground
from which they could reach their
enemy. And here also the fire died
only when the swirling flame could
find no further thing on which to prey.
The loss is estimated at $378,000
In the evening at 9:2O O'Clock the
last alarm OF. the eyentful day was
sounded. A messenger boy passing the
candy factory of Canning & Wallace
saw a tiny tongue of fame flicker from
window on the second floor. He ran
to the police station near by and shout.
ed "Fire!" As quickly as may be the
dashing engines reached the spot, and
the tired firemen saw whirlwind of
fire before them that sent twisting
eddies of flame across the street to lick
hungrily at the stonework of the oppo-
site buildings. On either hand of the
candy factory were warehouses filled
with paint and oils, brooms and rattan
ware. And the candy factory was
roaring furnace. 1t was situation
that appalled, the early comers to the
fire, but the flames were held in check
by the thick walls, and this morning
the gutted walls only of the candy
factory tell mute story of the strug-
gle, instead of a devastated block, as
here might we'll have been. The loss
is about $4,000.