For the week of July 4 - July 10, 2001

The year Hailey 
did not celebrate

Fire ruined the Fourth in 1889

---

By PETER BOLTZ
Express Staff Writer

Hailey was "such a graveyard" 112 years ago, almost to the day, that half of the 50 Shoshone residents who came up to celebrate the Fourth of July did not bother to spend all day there as they had planned.

Hailey residents themselves were subdued since their town could "hardly prove a joyous picnic ground."

That’s because the heart of the city had burned to the ground on July 2, 1889.

The Hailey Bank building on the southwest corner of Main and Bullion streets. Photo courtesy of the Blaine County Museum Collection and the Community Library Regional History Department.

The heart was the four-block business district¾ the east and west sides of Main Street, from Carbonate Street to Croy Street.

"Only one general merchandise store is left, out of five," reported the Wood River Times.

And the list continued: "One dry goods and clothing store out of four, both hardware and drugstores are destroyed, also both butcher shops, the furniture store, three fruit and vegetable stores, all the attorneys’ offices and libraries but one, and the three barber shops.

"There are only one restaurant or dining room and hotel left ¾ the Alturas ¾ one provision store, two livery stables, and one saloon."

The Times estimated the loss to be about $500,000.

That comes out to about $7.5 million in today’s dollars, according to a rough conversion method suggested by the accounting firm Smith, Cook & Co.

Hailey lies desolate in this photo taken from Main Street in a northeast direction. In the left foreground is a safe. Photo courtesy of the IAW/Ensign Collection and the Community Library Regional History Department.

"This is bad, very bad, for a town of about 1,500 inhabitants, and especially in such dull times as we are experiencing," the Times reported.

The fire started about 1:30 a.m. from an unattended candle in a room at the Nevada Lodging House on the east side of Main Street between Carbonate and Bullion streets.

The roomer was a miner who had come to Hailey "crazed with neuralgic pains." He retired to his room, but his pain wouldn’t let him rest. He left his room without putting his candle out, and, as the Times put it, "the rest is known."

After the fire, money and sympathy flowed into Hailey from Ketchum and Bellevue.

Residents of Ketchum sent $350 to Hailey for the suffering. Bellevue sent $500.

The publisher of the Times, T.E. Picotte, reported that "at least 15 able-bodied men came from Bellevue at the breaking out of the fire, and some of them reported at this office, saying: ‘We are here to help. Now, order us where you please!’"

This looks like Charleston, S.C., just after its capture during the Civil War, but it’s Hailey after the fire. Photo courtesy of the Community Library Regional History Department.

He added that the "Bellevue hose" stayed in Hailey until the fire was completely out.

A year later, it was as if the fire had never happened. Its mention was nowhere to be found in the Times for July 4, 1890.

Instead there was news of a brass band, a 44-gun salute, and cheer after cheer. Hailey was celebrating Idaho’s entry into the Union on July 3, 1890.

(The Mountain Express would like to thank Chris Millspaugh and Rusty Marti of the Community Library Regional History Department for their assistance.)

The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.