Ninety years ago, the troubled cargo ship City of Nome caught fire while fueling on the Chehalis River near Elliott Slough and drew on-lookers for most of a week. Considering the potential for a horrific disaster, it is truly amazing that there were no serious injuries.

From the time of her launch in 1919 by the Elliott Bay Ship Building Company in Seattle, with the name Semmeltind (she would be re-christened City of Nome in 1924), the M/V City of Nome was considered an “unlucky ship” by superstitious sailors. Her engines had such extensive problems that after only six years on the high seas she was deemed too expensive to operate and for a year-and-a-half had sat idle in San Francisco Bay. In the summer of 1927, she was put back into service and her first run would be to carry lumber from Aberdeen to Australia. Hopes were high, but despite extensive work, she had no sooner left San Francisco when she developed engine trouble and was seven days in reaching Grays Harbor. There the engines were again worked on, the ship was loaded and prepared for the trip across the Pacific. She would never make it out of the Harbor.

On Friday afternoon, June 3, 1927 at about 1:30, the cargo ship City of Nome, laden with 1,700,000 feet of clear-grain lumber bound for Adelaide, Australia, had just completed fueling at her berth at the Standard Oil docks (present day Lakeside Industries) at the mouth of Elliott Slough. Captain H.W. Wigsten was preparing to cast off when his order to fire up the engines was met by a loud explosion as one of the engines backfired. Smoke belched out of the aft engine room and flames spread with unbelievable rapidity through the hold and companionways. Surprisingly, no one was seriously injured, although one man, trapped in the chief engineer’s room, broke open a porthole and stuffed strips of bedding into cracks in the door to keep the smoke from pouring in. He was rescued only after fire fighters chopped a hole through the deck.

Aberdeen Fire Chief William H. Tamblyn quickly arrived at the scene and assessing the situation was confronted by a quandary: should he hold the ship at the Standard Oil docks and jeopardize the safety of the huge gasoline and oil tanks, or tow it midstream where it would be safer but out of reach of the city fire hoses. The issue was compounded when he received word that fireman George Churchil of city fire station No. 3 at the west end of Hume Street (now the city water department garage) had crashed his truck, Combination No. 1, into two other fire engines while rushing to the scene of the blaze, putting all three out of commission.

With this disheartening news and the growing fear of a catastrophic explosion at the oil terminal, Tamblyn decided to flood the ship’s hold. Water flooded in and numerous times the flames appeared to be under control but continued explosions of the ship’s gas tanks, which altogether held 700 gallons of diesel, fed the flames and by 5 o’clock it was clear that the blaze was now unmanageable. The stricken freighter was taken in tow by three tugs, and two government ships, Eagle boat No. 11, equipped with fire apparatus, and the United States Geodetic Survey ship Guide, and pulled slowly up the river to the Schafer Mill’s dolphin piling.

The crews of the two government ships and the tugboats poured water on the blazing ship, with the tug Tyee heading directly into the fire belching from the lee side of the vessel. The fire crew appeared to be gaining the upper hand, but around 8 p.m. the fire melted the City of Nome’s fuel tanks and blazing oil poured over the water. A cordon of boom sticks was hastily drawn around the blazing vessel which kept the fire from spreading any great distance.

Realizing the fire was gaining on them and fearing an explosion, it was decided to scuttle the vessel. Two huge dynamite charges were set off in the hold along the water line in an attempt to split the forward fuel tanks. The ship settled considerably but the lumber in her hold and her wooden construction kept her afloat and the tanks remained intact. One of the dangers faced by the boat crews was the fear that the ship would “turn turtle.” Filled with water at the dock she had developed a decided list and tug crews stood by with axes to cut the lines if the ship was to roll over. The oil on the surface of the water continued to blaze steadily throughout the night.

In the lurid light of the burning ship and from the myriad searchlights and deck lights of the tugs and government boats, a crowd of estimated 15,000 persons watched the spectacular scene from the waterfront, the hills and log booms. Some spectators remained throughout the night suspecting at any time to see a tremendous explosion.

As Saturday morning dawned, the burning hulk was moved from the Schafer dolphin and out of the shipping lanes to a point near the mouth of Elliott Slough. With a large supply of her fuel oil still unburned, the City of Nome continued blazing unabated, the flames fed by generated gas and a generous supply of kiln-dried lumber. There was now nothing anyone could do but let the fire burn itself out.

Shortly before noon on Sunday, the survey boat Guide and Eagle boat 11 were recalled and the tug Tyee was placed on guard over the burning hulk. Gas generated from the super-heated oil in the hold was responsible for the stubbornness of the fire, and the Tyee continued to pump water on the forward section hoping to keep the tanks cool enough to prevent an explosion. Hundreds of spectators were attracted to the blaze again Sunday and Monday night and the fire grew even more spectacular as the two masts fell early Sunday afternoon. Only after the vessel’s entire cargo and superstructure had burned to the water’s edge was the fire fully extinguished on Thursday, six days after it first ignited.

The City of Nome was now a shell of its former self and salvage rights were purchased by Charles Rosenkrantz and Victor Morrison of Western Machinery Exchange (forerunner of today’s Western Steel & Supply). By Saturday, a crew from the company started work of salvaging iron and machinery from the fire-gutted ship. Several of the chains had been removed from what remained of the lumber cargo in the hull when, shortly before 7 o’clock that evening, after the salvage crew had departed for the day, the lumber in the hold broke loose and floated to the surface. Rosenkrantz and Morrison, still on the boat, narrowly escaped death by leaping to a scow on which the salvaged metal had been placed, just as the City of Nome took a final death heave and rolled over.

With the ship a worthless hulk, it was taken under tow and drawn out to the bay, up Elk River and beached on the riverbank where it rests to this day. The wheel from the City of Nome was salvaged and in 1960 donated to the Olympia Yacht Club where it is on display as an artifact of one of the most spectacular and dangerous fires in Harbor history.

Roy Vataja is the son of Finnish immigrants and is glad that he wasn’t in fireman George Churchil’s shoes having to explain to Chief Tamblyn and the city council how he managed to wreck three fire engines.