SQUINT AND YOU might think this photo was taken in 1945 Berlin. Blink and it could be Gettysburg, 1863. But this tableau actually unfolded on Front Street (now First Avenue), Seattle, not far from the cabinet shop at Madison where an overheated glue pot ignited the Great Fire of June 6, 1889. By the time the flames sizzled out in the Duwamish tide flats, at least 25 blocks lay in ruins.

While the fire still smoldered, Mayor Robert Moran ordered a ban on booze sales, an 8pm curfew, and summary justice for any lawbreakers resisting arrest. Within hours, the state militia deployed to keep order. By the next day, the guardsmen had arrested more than 50 looters and loiterers—one of whom was wearing four new suits—and dispersed a dozen others who’d “rescued” a 60-gallon cask of whiskey and tried to dispose of the evidence.

These two guardsmen have supposedly just caught a looter. But perhaps they’re only posing for the camera. Judging by their prisoner’s lackadaisical posture, he wasn’t too worried.