1898: When 75 percent of Park City was destroyed by a 'Fiery furnace'

                                Park City's Main Street.

IT was likely the largest city fire ever in Utah.

"Destroyed!; (Park) City practically wiped out; a raging conflagration; scene of ruin and despair," was a Deseret News headline on June 20, 1898.

A fire on Sunday, June 19, 1898, just after 4 a.m., all but destroyed the prosperous mining town. There were no lives lost, but many narrow escapes and many animals killed.

"Park City, Utah's proud and prosperous mining camp, has practically been wiped out of existence, being visited yesterday by the most disastrous conflagration in the history of Utah," the Deseret News reported. "It may be that the city will be rebuilt and rise again from the ruins that now cover the canyon where it once stood, but it will be years before it can fully recover - if recovery is at all possible under the circumstances - from the terrible visitation. The loss, it is conservatively estimated, will aggregate more than a million dollars. The actual insurance will not reach much more than a tenth of that amount."

The cause of the fire, also described as a “fiery furnace,” was never determined.

The speculation was that it began in the kitchen of the American Hotel. However, the proprietor, Harry Freeman believed that an oil lamp had been dropped in a room or simply that a candle had been left unattended.

“Park City laid in ashes yesterday. Great cap suffers a loss of over half a million dollars. Insurance will not be much over one hundred thousand …” was a June 20, 1898 headline in the Salt Lake Herald.

This newspaper story cited the historic town’s bad luck – first the economic downturn in 1893; then the main Park city bank failed; next a reduction in the wages of miner’s and millmen; and now the giant fire.

The story referred to the fire as “demon flame” and stated that “the hope for the future is small.”

The four existing fire hoses had little effect on the blaze. Buildings were soon dynamited, but all this did was slow the fire, not stop it.

                         Walking Park City's Main Street.

Firemen came from Coalville, Salt Lake and Ogden – mostly by train. But they did not arrive until midmorning when it was too late to do much but watch. It was not until noon that the fire was contained.

In the end, at least 120 businesses and 140 homes were wiped out – or some 75 percent of the town. At least 500 people were homeless.

A January 7, 1996 story in the Deseret News by Twila Van Leer stated that the disastrous fire made national headlines and even superseded the Spanish-American war as the top story in some U.S. newspapers.

What happened after the fire? The majority of the residents remained and rebuilt. (There had been a much smaller downtown Park City Fire in 1890.)

Salt Lake City gave $2,500 to Park City’s rebuilding. The City of Mount Pleasant gave $102.40 and many Utahns donated or helped in the rebuilding effort.

 Thirty-four miners were killed in a 1902 explosion at a Park City mine as another tragedy unfolded there.

Ultimately, Park City’s mining prospects diminished greatly and the town suffered a big downturn. However, thanks to skiing (2 area resorts) and the annual Sundance Film Festival, the town reinvented itself as a tourist mecca by the 1980s and 1990s.

Park City was also famed world-wide during the 2002 Winter Olympics.

-Although Park City, like Moab, is often pegged as a “Gentile” or largely a non-Mormon town, its name originated from an LDS Church Apostle, Parley P. Pratt. Elder Pratt built a toll road through Parley’s Canyon. Settlers at the top of the road called it “Parley’s Park City.” However, by the early 20^th Century the name was shortened to simply “Park City.”