The Hinkley Fire of 1894

[gary_in_neenah]

I found this story on the History Channel, this would've occurred some 20 years after the Great Peshtigo Fire in Wisconsin, both caused by similar conditions and circumstances.

The town of Hinckley, Minnesota, is destroyed by a forest fire on this day, September 1, 1894. A total of 440 people died in the area.

The upper Midwest was particularly vulnerable to devastating fires at the end of the 19th century as European settlers cleared the land for agriculture and timber and new railroad lines were built through heavily wooded areas. Hinckley was a new lumber and rail town built along the Grindstone River in Minnesota near the Wisconsin border. The town’s settlers felled trees for lumber using slash cutting techniques that left behind large amounts of wood debris—excellent fire fuel. Further, they set up lumber yards very close to the rail lines. This proved a dangerous combination when sparks from trains set the wood debris ablaze.

In the summer of 1894, drought conditions in the Upper Midwest made a deadly fire even more likely. On the afternoon of September 1, fires near two rail lines south of Hinckley broke out and spread north. As the raging fire reached the town’s train depot, 350 of the townspeople got on a train to escape. The train had to pass right through flames, but reached safety in West Superior, Wisconsin.

Other Hinckley residents sought refuge in the swamps near town, but many in this group were killed, some from drowning. About 100 other residents fled to a gravel pit fill with water; most managed to survive. A train that was entering Hinckley from the north reversed direction to avoid the blaze, but still caught fire. The only survivors were those who managed to jump from the train into a lake.

In all, 300,000 acres of town and forest burned in the fire, causing about $25 million in damages. In Hinckley, 228 people died. More than 200 others in the surrounding areas also perished, including 23 Ojibwa natives.

 

[gary_in_neenah]

Earlier that same year in Phillips, Wisconsin...

In the summer of 1894 Phillips had to endure a trial by fire. That summer was one of intense heat and drought. In mid July the timber slashings were tinder dry. Tops of trees, and branches were lying in heaps and hemlock bark was piled high waiting to be hauled to the tannery. Together with this was the regular conditions of a forest in a dry year. Swamps were parched with high brown grass. John R. Davis Lumber Company had 15 million feet of lumber in its yard, and a good share of the winter's cut of logs in decks near the lake. Add to that Fayette Shaw tannery with huge piles of hemlock bark and other small sawmills nearby with their pile of logs. The stage was set in northern Wisconsin and Phillips was in the middle of the powder keg.

On the evening of July 26th an efficient volunteer fire department stopped a fire approaching the north end of Phillips, but no one knew until to late that another fire had started only 10 miles southwest near lake Ten and waited only for the right wind. When the southwesterly wind did spring up there was nothing that could stop the fire. It is said that the fire traveled faster than a horse could run!

An interesting note about the fire is how it started. A drunken man needing money to drink with fought with a plucky wife over a pile of dry bark he wanted to sell. When she refused to let him sell, he set fire to it! The drunk escaped and was never seen again.

Even though the people of Phillips had been living under the threat of fire for many days they were unprepared for the speed of the inferno. First efforts were to save homes and were soon abandon for saving household goods and personal possessions. That to soon was abandon in an all out race for life. A string of box cars was loaded to capacity with women and children and dispatched to Prentice 12 miles to the south. The engineer reported that the smoke was so thick that he could not see the tracks. The train did make it through.

Another large group raced ahead of the fire to the Fair Grounds which are protected on three sides by water. Others found refuge on Eaton's hill and watch from there as the town burned.

The largest group of refugees, entire families with many children ran across the bridge on the north end of town and entrenched themselves at the water's edge protecting themselves from the burning embers and heat.

There was a part of this race for life that turned into tragedy however. Three families, including nine children seeking safety across the lake, were attempting to pole a houseboat out into the lake when the nearby lumber piles caught fire. The heat of that fire created a suction that whirled the houseboat back toward shore. An escape was made from the houseboat in smaller boats but the lake had by then been turned into a churning mass of white caps and the boats were swamped. Only one of the group, a woman, managed to cling to a boat and was saved. Thirteen lives were lost. All lives lost in this fire were in this one incident.

Dawn of the following day brought a drizzle of rain. Only a few charred remnants of buildings remained. Only a handful of houses escaped on the south end. The Lutheran church and a few homes and the brick-walled town of Worcester hall (which was some distance away. Many logging camps and farms were burned along with 100,000 acres of forest.