Robert Lynch Oral History | Highline History

An event that was a vivid memory for me happened in the 1920's. There was a grocery store and a drug store up at the intersection of 152nd and 21st SW. A fire was a big event in the 1920's. One warm summer night that store caught fire. People came from miles around in their nightgowns and pajamas to watch the fire. Extreme heat caused cans of food to explode. The exploding cans of food flew up in the air for 20 or 30 feet. It was so hot that for about three days after the fire there were still cans going up in the air and exploding. They didn't have any fire department to put out the fire. They didn't put them out, they just stood there and watched the places burn down...

On one of our Sunday trips to Burien to fish (Ed: Before his family moved to Burien from North Seattle), we were riding the streetcar home. The side of the car tracks was a dirt road (Ambaum). East of Ambaum there was a forest fire and we could see deer, small animals trapped in the fire as we went by on the streetcar. I was probably ten years old at the time. It just had to burn itself out because there was no fire department, and there was no water.

At that time we used to come out here on the streetcar during the summer. We'd get on at Cowan Park, in the north end, and go down to Riverside, where Spokane Street is now, and then we'd transfer. The street car brought out freight and lumber. They just hooked on another car to the back end. It was just like a freight train, and brought it out. The tracks went right into the Bunge Lumber company (152nd and Ambaum) and Bantam and McGraw. They had to have lumber to build houses. At that time they brought it from Seattle on the Burien Streetcar. They didn't have any roads our here, and the trucks that they did have were just small trucks.