This blaze started because someone wanted to burn the saloon. The man missed his target and lit G. B. Ingersoll’s hardware store on fire.
Dynamite
The amazing part of this story is that there was dynamite kept n the back of the hardware store. An eye witness said it was the Japanese citizens of Eatonville who went into the burning structure and carried it out. (Per History of Eastern Pierce County.)
This is incredible. Who has the guts to remove dynamite in a FIRE?
I would like to think I would have been brave enough to do something like that — for my town and its people. But in truth, I would have been in the bucket brigade.
To those gutsy citizens on May 15, 1915, here’s a belated “THANK YOU!”
Eatonville To Rainier 
4 responses to “May 7, 1915 Fire”
It also burned the barber shop and the Mashell Restaurant south of the hardware. The barber shop became part of our family history when a very young Frank Van Eaton ,wagon & his out of control team crashed into the shop. The accident investagation indicted it was probably caused by a someone showing off to some young ladies in the vicinity. The horses where a little banged up, the buiding definatly needed fixing along with someone’s ego. These buidings were’t rebuilt after the fire.The NE cornner of Mashell & Groe (now Center) was vacant into the 1920’s.
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[…] 1915, Japanese men demonstrated their love for the town as they rushed into the burning hardware store and removed the dynamite stored in the […]
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[…] years later. In 1915, someone inadvertently set his store on fire, setting off what is considered Eatonville’s worst fire. Eatonville Blaze of […]
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[…] probably Mr. Ingersoll’s hardware store around 1914 (see Pat’s comments below). In the 1915 fire, it would not only burn to the ground, it would be the place the got its […]
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