Destruction By Fire
By 1894 Willamette Chief had come to the end of her useful life, and was moored at Albina, Oregon awaiting dismantling. By this time the steamer was owned by the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company which arranged to have its wheat dock located near the coal tipples for its steam locomotives. Moored at the wheat dock, as was often the case, was a ship loading wheat, and across the river from the ship was the Willamette Chief. Somehow a fire ignited at a coal tipple, perhaps caused by inflammable coal dust. The burning tipple ignited the wheat dock. Men on the dock desperately hacked at the ship's moorings to get her free before she could catch fire. Just as the wheat ship came free of the dock, the coal tipple collapsed in flames and fire leapt up into the ship's rigging. Drifting free, the burning ship crashed into Willamette Chief which herself was quickly consumed by the fire.
Read more about this topic: Willamette Chief (sternwheeler)
Famous quotes containing the words destruction and/or fire:
“If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“The tender skin does not shrink from bayonets, the timid woman is not scared by fagots; the rack is not frightful, nor the rope ignominious. The poor Puritan, Antony Parsons, at the stake, tied straw on his head when the fire approached him, and said, “This is God’s hat.””
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)