1933 blaze damaged historic Granite Falls hotel

It could have been so much worse.

On the morning of April 26, 1933, a fire broke out at the Cascade Hotel on the northeast corner of the main highway intersection in the town of Granite Falls. Fueled in part by a gentle northwest breeze, the blaze threatened not only the building that housed the hotel, a drug store and a restaurant, but a large portion of the city as well.

“Flames were well underway before they were discovered,” according to a front-page report in that same day’s edition of The Everett Daily Herald.

Early on, when it appeared likely the flames would spread over a wide territory, the Everett Fire Department was summoned.

A pumper and crew, sent to assist, stopped at Lake Stevens and were ordered back to Everett “after word was telephoned that the fire was under the control of the Granite Falls fire fighters,” the newspaper reported.

The two-story building had opened in 1893 — just two years after Granite Falls was platted — as the Mountain View Hotel. Its 22 rooms were over a restaurant. In the teens, a new owner changed the name to the Cascade.

The blaze, later suspected of having started in the restaurant’s kitchen, caused an estimated $3,500 worth of damage, about $67,000 in today’s dollars.

Following the fire, then-owner Ralph Pullen announced plans to build a new brick building on the site but eventually chose to just eliminate the upper floor. Repairs began within a week, and Pullen expected the building to be ready for use by the end of that May. Then in the depths of the Great Depression, a newspaper story noted that only workers and material from Granite Falls were to be used on the job.

The building underwent extensive remodeling in the 1960s. Today, the structure still stands at 101 E. Stanley St.