The 1891 State Normal School at Cheney fire was a conflagration on the morning of August 27, 1891, that consumed the only building then housing the State Normal School at Cheney in Cheney, Washington.[1] There were no deaths, but the destruction of the building sparked a multi-year battle with the governor and state legislature regarding whether the normal school would be shuttered, or whether the state would authorize funds for the construction of a replacement building.[2]
At the time of the fire, the institution originally known as the Benjamin P. Cheney Academy had only been in place for nine years, operating for most of those years as a school for local children. The campus's original building, built in the fall of 1881, was a wooden structure, measuring 36×66ft; by August 1891, the school (renamed the State Normal School at Cheney shortly after Washington became a state in 1889) was constructing an addition of four classrooms and a gymnasium to accommodate rising enrollment and the needs of the new normal school curriculum.[3]
The town around the campus, Cheney, Washington, has been described by historians as a "tough little town," and "the last camping-ground of the American frontier."[4][5] It was home to speculators and opportunists, like most other frontier towns at the time.[4]
Fire
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. According to the Spokane Daily Chronicle, fire officials believed the fire began when a leaking hydrant soaked a pile of lime next to the building, where new construction at the building site was underway.[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."[3] According to the Chronicle, the fire department arrived on the scene almost immediately, but the flames consumed the building so quickly that "the efforts of the firemen were useless."[1][7]
Immediate impact
The Pomeroy Block, where the State Normal School at Cheney was temporarily located from 1891–1893 (photo taken ca. 1915)
The building, then valued at $10,000, burned to the ground as a total loss.[1] It had contained a large number of new books and materials, along with a brand new piano, that had just been acquired for the upcoming school year.[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. The university had an insurance policy on the building, but the policy had been made payable to the Washington State Legislature instead of to the school itself.[2] This left the university in limbo without any funding to rebuild.
The community immediately helped to secure a location by September 2, 1891, so the normal school could open in time for the fall term.[8] There are some discrepancies in available sources regarding exactly what arrangements were made. Oliphant indicates that, for the first week of the term, the trustees of Cheney's public school offered the temporary use of their building until more permanent accommodations could be found;[2] in contrast, the August 28, 1891 edition of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer claims that by that date, the normal school's Board of Trustees had already made arrangements for rented storefronts in downtown Cheney.[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. The temporary school "location was poor, the rooms small, and the hallways dark and narrow,"[10] but despite that reality, the normal school remained in operation there until 1893.[2]
Long-term impact
The loss of the building, which was under-insured, threw the future of the school into doubt. Established originally as an academy by a private endowment from Benjamin Pierce Cheney, the school had only begun to operate as a normal school in October 1890.[11] Funding normal schools in the state had been a contentious budget issue. Governor McGraw exercised his veto in the spring of 1893 to hold back $85,000 of funds that had been approved by the legislature to rebuild the school;[12] the veto was widely derided by newspaper editorials around the state, including pieces in the Cheney Sentinel, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and the Seattle Telegraph.[13]
In response, the residents of Cheney voted overwhelmingly (262–13 in favor) for a bond measure to finance the building of a public school building, which the city would loan to the State Normal School until such time as its own building could be erected.[2] The principal of the State Normal School at Cheney, William J. Sutton, described the loaned building as "a commodious 2-storied brick building ... one of the most complete and convenient school buildings in the state. It will be supplied with water from the city water works, with electric light, electric bells and heated by steam."[14] The normal school would occupy this loaned public school building from the fall of 1893[15] until 1896.[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.[17] McGraw's resolve weakened, however: he was influenced in part by the opinion of C. W. Bean, the state superintendent of public instruction (whose research had concluded that McGraw's preferred model of a single central state normal school had not succeeded in other states).[18] Perhaps as importantly, McGraw had been impressed by the survival and increasing enrollment numbers reported by the State Normal School at Cheney, which, as it had been achieved during years in temporary quarters with meager appropriations from the state, indicated the overall health of the institution.[18] When the legislature passed a bill in March 1895 authorizing $60,000 for the construction of a new normal school building in Cheney, McGraw added his assent, and the construction was scheduled to begin.[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."[21]
1 2 3 4 5 Oliphant, J. Orin (1924). History of the State Normal School at Cheney, Washington. Spokane, Washington: Inland America Printing Company. pp.31–33.
1 2 Oliphant, J. Orin (1924). History of the State Normal School at Cheney, Washington. Spokane, Washington: Inland-American Printing Company. p.9.
1 2 Haag, Edmund V. (1982). The Centennial Album: An Illustrated History of Eastern Washington University. Cheney, Washington: EWU Press. p.9.
↑ Oliphant, J. Orin (1924). History of the State Normal School at Cheney, Washington. Spokane, Washington: Inland-American Printing Company. p.3.
↑ The Sanborn-Perris fire insurance map of Cheney in July 1891 focuses only on the small business district and so excludes any depiction of the normal school; it also identifies Cheney as a town with "no steam & no hand engines" and limited water facilities.
↑ "The State Normal School will be opened". Sprague Herald. No.Weekly Edition. September 2, 1891.
↑ "News of Northwest". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. August 27, 1891. p.1.
↑ Dryden, Cecil (1965). Light for an Empire: The Story of Eastern Washington State College. Cheney, Washington: Eastern Washington State College. p.41.
↑ Oliphant, J. Orin (1924). History of the State Normal School at Cheney, Washington. Spokane, Washington: Inland-American Printing Company. p.29.
↑ Dryden, Cecil (1965). Light for an Empire: The Story of Eastern Washington State College. Cheney, Washington: Eastern Washington State College. p.45.
↑ "Cheney Normal School". Pullman Herald. Pullman, Washington. September 15, 1893.
↑ "State News". Washington Standard. Olympia, Washington. November 24, 1893. p.1.
↑ Dryden, Cecil (1965). Light for an Empire: The Story of Eastern Washington State College. Cheney, Washington: Eastern Washington State College. p.47.
↑ "Governor's Message". Washington Standard. Olympia, Washington. January 18, 1895. p.1.
1 2 3 Oliphant, J. Orin (1924). History of the State Normal School at Cheney, Washington. Spokane, Washington: Inland-American Printing Company. pp.45–46.
↑ "Bills That Passed". Washington Standard. Olympia, Washington. March 22, 1895. p.1.
↑ Oliphant, J. Orin (1924). History of the State Normal School at Cheney, Washington. Spokane, Washington: Inland-American Printing Company. p.55.
↑ Oliphant, J. Orin (1924). History of the State Normal School at Cheney, Washington. Spokane, Washington: Inland-American Printing Company. p.54.
Cheney is a city in Spokane County, Washington, United States. The full-time resident population was 13,255 as of 2020 census. Eastern Washington University is located in Cheney. When classes are in session at EWU, the city's population reaches approximately 17,600 people on a temporary basis.
Spokane is the largest city and county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It is in eastern Washington, along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, 92 miles (148 km) south of the Canadian border, 18 miles (30 km) west of the Washington–Idaho border, and 279 miles (449 km) east of Seattle, along I-90.
Pullman is the largest city in Whitman County, located in southeastern Washington within the Palouse region of the Pacific Northwest. The population was 29,799 at the 2010 census, and estimated to be 34,506 in 2019. Originally founded as Three Forks, the city was renamed after industrialist George Pullman in 1884.
Eastern Washington University (EWU) is a public university in Cheney, Washington. It also offers programs at a campus in EWU Spokane at the Riverpoint Campus and other campus locations throughout the state.
U.S. Route 195 (US 195) is a north–south United States Highway, of which all but 0.65 miles of its 94.02 miles are within the state of Washington. The highway starts in rural Idaho north of the city of Lewiston as a state highway in an interchange with US 95. As the road crosses into Washington it becomes a state highway that connects communities in the Palouse region of Eastern Washington. US 195 travels north, serving the cities of Pullman, Colfax and Rosalia in Whitman County before continuing into Spokane County to its terminus in the city of Spokane at an interchange with Interstate 90 (I-90).
Martin Stadium is an outdoor athletic stadium in the northwest United States, on the campus of Washington State University in Pullman, Washington. It is the home field of the Washington State Cougars of the Pac-12 Conference.
Clarence Daniel Martin was an American politician who served as the 11th governor of Washington from 1933 to 1941. A member of the Democratic Party, he was appointed to fill a vacancy in the Washington House of Representatives in 1944 and was the first governor born in the territory of the state.
William John McConnell was the third governor of Idaho from 1893 until 1897. He had previously represented the new state as one of its first United States Senators; Idaho achieved statehood in July 1890.
Cheney School District No. 360 is a public school district in Spokane County, Washington and serves the towns of Cheney, Airway Heights, and the surrounding area. The district offers classes from Kindergarten to Grade 12.
The history of Spokane, Washington in the northwestern United States developed because Spokane Falls and its surroundings were a gathering place for numerous cultures for thousands of years. The area's indigenous people settled there due to the fertile hunting grounds and abundance of salmon in the Spokane River. The first European to explore the Inland Northwest was Canadian explorer-geographer David Thompson, working as head of the North West Company's Columbia Department. At the nexus of the Little Spokane and the Spokane, Thompson's men built a new fur trading post, which is the first long-term European settlement in Washington state.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Spokane, Washington, USA.
William James Sutton was an American politician in the state of Washington. He served in the Washington State Senate from 1913 to 1917 and 1921 to 1933. From 1931 to 1933, he was President pro tempore of the Senate.
William Bryan "Red" Reese was athletic director and coach of multiple sports at Eastern Washington University in Cheney from 1930 to 1964.
The 1912 State Normal School at Cheney fire consumed the main classroom and office building of the State Normal School at Cheney, in Cheney, Washington, on April 24, 1912. There were no deaths, but the destruction of the building led to a prolonged political fight over whether the state legislature and governor would close the institution, or authorize funds for its replacement.
Chauncey B. Seaton was an architect in the U.S. He was born near Bucyrus, Ohio, studied at Wooster University and then at a technical school in Chicago.
Mary Ann Monroe was a prominent teacher and school administrator in Spokane, Washington, and an active figure in education across the state of Washington. She was the first woman to serve as president of the Washington Education Association and the first woman on the board of trustees at the State Normal School at Cheney. She ran unsuccessfully for the office of Washington Superintendent of Public Instruction in 1912, but was active in civic and state politics in the early 20th century.
The Cheney Free Press has been the dominant newspaper of Cheney in the U.S. state of Washington since its inception in 1896. It was not the first newspapers there; the North-West Tribune was published in Cheney from June 1880 to about 1886, and was the second in Spokane County.
The Associated Students of Eastern Washington University (ASEWU) is the student government for the undergraduate and graduate student body at Eastern Washington University (EWU). The organization was first established in what was then the State Normal School at Cheney when its constitution was approved for the 1919–1920 academic year, and its initial class of officers were elected. ASEWU has played an important role in the life and landscape of EWU, including raising funds for multiple student union building projects over the course of the 20th and early 21st centuries.
Journalism in Washington began with the publication of newspapers in the cities of Port Townsend, Steilacoom, and Olympia in the 1860s. By then, there had been journalism in Oregon for as long as a decade.
Cheney High School is a four-year public high school in Cheney, Washington serving the Cheney School District. The school has a population of 1,300 students in grades 9–12, with more than 70 full-time equivalent teaching staff. Cheney athletic teams compete in the Greater Spokane League as the Blackhawks, and the school colors are red and black.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
