Port Townsend, WA Shingle Mill Fire, Jun 1910

SHINGLE MILL MYSTERIOUSLY CATCHES ON FIRE

Timely Arrival of an Employe[sic] Saves Plant from Destruction.

The Port Townsend Shingle Mill Co's plant came near being destroyed by fire Sunday morning. The plant was closed down Saturday night until Monday morning and no one had been in the building. The electric light plant which adjoins the shinglemill closed down at sunrise current on Sundays and when the employes[sic] of both plants left everything was all right. On Sunday morning about 8:30 o'clock the saw filer of the shingle mill had occasion to visit the plant and when he unlocked the door he found the room filled with smoke. On investigating her found a fire burning and a hole had been burned in the floor. He lost no time in extinguishing the fire. There was, as is usually the case, considerable inflammable stuff in a shingle mill and in a short time the fire would have reached it and before it would have been discovered the plant would have been gutted. It is the opinion of those connected with the plant that the fire was of incendiary origin and that someone, after the electric light plant had shut down early in the morning for Sunday had visited the mill and started the fire. Just why any one would wish to destroy the plant seems a little strange but all are of the opinion it was not an accidental fire, for the reason that there had been no one in the mill for at least 14 hours previous to the discovery of the fire and that if it had been smouldering all that time the smoke would have been noticed by the employes[sic] of the electric light plant when they closed at sunrise Sunday morning.

Port Townsend Daily Leader, Port Townsend, WA 28 Jun 1910
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Transcribed by Linda Horton. Thank you, Linda!