100 years ago in Spokane: Where there’s smoke, there’s strikers? Not likely, the fire chief said

Flames and smoke marked a second tense day in Hillyard, when two abandoned ice sheds burned down in the Great Northern rail yards.

The fire spread into the lumber piles of the Diamond Match Co. and took an hour to extinguish.

Was this the work of striking rail shop workers? The strike had become increasingly violent, but in this case, the fire may have started by accident.

“It is impossible to tell what caused the fire, but it was probably due to sparks from a locomotive,” the fire chief said.

In fact, striking shopmen aided the firefighters in handling the hoses. At one time, as many as 12 hoses were deployed on the fire.

From the strike beat: Meanwhile, the federal marshal in Spokane swore in a number of new deputies in an attempt to provide a “heavy guard” 24 hours a day at the Great Northern shops. One of their goals was to prevent crowds from forming at streetcar stops, where nonunion workers reported being harassed, chased and beaten.

The railroads were “making all preparations for an extended siege,” the Spokane Daily Chronicle reported. Tall “board stockades” were erected at the Northern Pacific yards in Parkwater.

At Hillyard, new (nonunion) employees were being taken to and from work in autos furnished by the company. Some employees were never leaving the yards at all – they were being housed in Pullman cars and fed in dining cars.