The combination of a safe bay and an abundance of coniferous trees made Seattle the perfect location for shipping lumber to California.

Additionally, because the area was at or below sea level, the fledgling town was a frequent victim of massive floods, requiring buildings to be built on wooden stilts.

The town also used hollowed out scrap logs propped up on wooden braces as sewer and water pipes, increasing the combustible loading.

At approximately 2:20 p.m. on June 6, 1889, an accidentally overheated glue pot in a carpentry shop started the most destructive fire in the history of Seattle.

[3][4] The next day, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, operating out of temporary facilities in the wake of the fire, reported incorrectly that the incident began in "Jim McGough's paint shop, under Smith's boot and shoe store, at the corner of Front and Madison streets, in what was known as the Denny block";[5] a correction two weeks later said that it "actually started in the Clairmont and Company cabinet shop, below McGough's shop in the basement of the Pontius building", but the original error was often repeated, including in Murray Morgan's bestselling Seattle history book Skid Road (1951).

[5] John Back, a 24-year-old Swede,[4] was heating the glue over a gasoline fire when it boiled over, igniting the wood chips and turpentine covering the floor.

The population increase made Seattle the largest city in Washington, making it a leading contender in becoming the terminus of the Great Northern Railway.

The Seattle Fire Department was officially established four months later to replace a volunteer organization with a paid force containing new firehouses and a new chief.

[16] These changes became principal features of post-fire construction and are still visible in Seattle's Pioneer Square district today, the present-day location of the fire.