Fire destroys historic downtown Chewelah hardware store, 'a landmark for the town'

Aug. 18—CHEWELAH — A fire destroyed Chewelah's downtown hardware store overnight Thursday, gutting a historic town fixture designed by renowned architect Kirtland Cutter.

Sety's Ace Hardware Owner Paul Sety, who is also a volunteer firefighter, was at a loss for words Friday.

"We are going to rebuild," he said. "It's in our blood, and the town needs a store."

Community members watched from the sidewalks Friday morning as fire crews continued to spray down the smoldering ashes inside the remaining roofless shell. Piles of crumbled bricks covered the street.

The fire was discovered late Thursday night, witnesses said.

Sety's, at 301 E. Main Ave., moved to the historic brick building in downtown Chewelah in the late 1960s.

The store occupied the former Yale Hotel built in 1908 and designed by Cutter, who also masterminded the Davenport Hotel in Spokane.

Paul Sety's father, Frank Sety, bought the building in 1968 and renovated it. The store has remained in the family ever since.

Frank Sety recalled a similar overnight fire that destroyed his power equipment store in Colville in 1999.

"Anytime you get a fire in a store like that, it's going to burn everything," he said. "There are so many combustibles."

The Chewelah fire destroyed three attached buildings that made up the hardware store, including the old three-story hotel. The upper stories were used for storage.

Paul Sety and his wife recently opened a coffee shop, the Yale Press, in a fourth building on the corner. The cafe was saved, besides some water damage. Sety said it should be serving coffee again in a few days.

Polly Davidson, a lifelong resident and food bank volunteer, remembers when the building was still a hotel. She was sad it was destroyed and said the store was an important fixture in the community.

"This was the only hardware store in Chewelah," she said. "If someone needs to buy a nail, there's no place to buy a nail right now."

Kathy Jensen said she saw the fire inside the window near the store entrance when she was returning from visiting the hospital at about 11 p.m. The flames quickly spread to the other buildings.

"Everything started popping, and it was totally engulfed," she said. "We were in shock."

The Stevens County Sheriff's Office issued a warning to residents after midnight Friday to stay away from downtown to avoid getting in the way of firefighters and because of heavy smoke. The blaze was contained by about 2:30 a.m., the sheriff's office said.

Heat from the fire blew out windows in two buildings across the street: the hardware store's garden annex and the Chewelah Food Bank.

Dennis J. Fitzgerald reminisced about selling cars in one of the buildings when it used to be his father's Ford dealership in the '40s and '50s.

"That building was a landmark for the town," said Diane Evans, a coordinator for the Walt Goodman Museum in Chewelah. "We don't have many historic buildings left."

The Yale Hotel was built just a few years after the Pomeroy Hotel burned down a few blocks away in 1904, local historian Geno Ludwig said.

Having affiliated with Ace in 1969, Sety's is one of the oldest Ace Hardware stores in the Northwest, according to the hardware cooperative.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

James Hanlon's reporting for The Spokesman-Review is funded in part by Report for America and by members of the Spokane community. This story can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license. For more information on this, please contact our newspaper's managing editor.