1891 State Normal School at Cheney fire

[4] Early on the morning of August 27, 1891 (at around 12:45 am[6]), just one week before the fall term was scheduled to begin, the Cheney fire department responded to a blaze at the State Normal School.

[1] J. Orin Oliphant, writing the institution's first published history in 1924, cited the reminiscences of a Cheney resident in claiming that "the fire started on the northeast side, in a heated mortar bed, which was too close to the wooden basement wall.

[6] Since the structure had contained the entire institution, the school had to make arrangements to resume classes in another building while the state debated an appropriation to rebuild.

[9] Regardless, sources agree that by the end of the term's first week the normal school had set up in rented space in the Pomeroy building in downtown Cheney.

[16] Governor McGraw's biennial budget priorities for 1895 remained opposed to the rebuilding of the State Normal School at Cheney: in his annual message, McGraw emphasized that "it was owing to no personal feeling or antipathy of opinion that the veto power was exercised in the cases of the Cheney and Whatcom Normal Schools," but reiterated his conviction that the people of the state should not be required to pay additional taxes for the requested construction work.

[19][18] Infighting between the citizens of Cheney and the normal school's administration, as well as disputes over the new construction, ultimately delayed the opening of the state's new building until 1897.

[20] The controversy brought a new newspaper to town, the Cheney Free Press, which was established "to support the interests of the Normal School administration.