DNT Extra August 2018

A look back at the fires that devastated the Northland

4

100 years later

1918 fires remain state’s worst natural disaster

Rick Lubbers

A century ago, catastrophic fires desolated the Northland. The headlines from that time can appear sensational at first glance — “29 villages wiped off map” or “Duluth sustains severe loss by flame invasion” — but it’s difficult to overstate the widespread destruction those fires left in their wake.

Hundreds dead. Thousands left homeless. Whole towns destroyed.

For the fifth edition of DNT Extra, we’re taking a look at the horrific fires of 1918. Through pictures, headlines, first-person accounts from the time and the knowledge of local historians, this edition is filled with stories from that tragic event in the Northland’s history. And while the subject matter is often somber, recounting a time that included the fires, World War I and the Spanish Flu pandemic, we are reminded of the brave men and women who not only risked their lives to help save others, but also opened their homes and businesses to the refugees of the fires. We’re also reminded that the vast majority of affected residents chose to stay and rebuild their homes, their businesses, their towns, the Northland. And we are indebted to those hardworking people who persevered despite the ruin and tragedy that lay all around them. We hope you’ll find this section informative and interesting.

This issue of DNT Extra follows our past editions on the Twin Ports’ maritime heritage, the region’s craft beer boom, Northland weather and the 20th anniversary of the Homegrown Music Festival. Our next edition will be published in October. If you have any ideas for upcoming issues of DNT Extra, please let us know.

Thanks again for reading the Duluth News Tribune and DNT Extra.

Rick Lubbers is the executive editor of the Duluth News Tribune. Contact him at (218) 723-5301 or rlubbers@duluthnews.com.

12

‘Hellfire in Hermantown’

As fires raged across northern Minnesota, Hermantown was in their path

8

‘The stars would fall out of the sky’

Moose Lake Area Historical Society commemorates fires

18

Legends, lore and lies

The true story of the Cloquet depot agent on the day of the fire?

21 Heroics

Motor Corps helped save people, property

24

Neighbor offers refuge

Superior extends hand to fire refugees

26

Flu adds to fire’s toll

Outbreak claimed many survivors’ lives

30

Could it happen again?

Number of factors make a repeat of 1918 fires highly unlikely

Page design for this section by Renae Ronquist. Editing by Peter Baumann, Rick Lubbers and Jana Hollingsworth. Assistance with photos from Bob King, Steve Kuchera and Jed Carlson, and assistance with graphics from Gary Meader.

1918 fires remain state’s worst natural disaster

By Jana Hollingsworth jhollingsworth@duluthnews.com

“Red, flaming annihilation.”

That’s what the Duluth News Tribune called the 1918 fires that destroyed entire northern Minnesota towns, burned up thousands of acres and left mass death and devastation in their wake.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of what remains Minnesota’s worst natural disaster.

A series of major fires tore through several counties, including parts of Pine, Carlton and St. Louis counties between Oct. 10-12, 1918, killing 453 people, scorching 1,500 square miles and thousands of properties, and wiping out entire families.

The Oct. 13, 1918, News Tribune reported: “scenes at the police station and at the points where

refugees are being cared for are heartbreaking, mothers have lost their children … men went violently insane from their experiences.”

The firestorm

The fires — sparked in the midst of World War I and a Spanish flu pandemic — followed years of drought, with the summer before the driest on record in nearly 50 years. Fuel for the various blazes was plentiful, coming from lumber yards, and white pine forests and logging remnants found throughout Carlton County. Strong winds and a dearth of firefighting equipment helped create the perfect storm for destruction.

Coal-burning rail cars near Brookston on Oct. 10 sparked the fire that ultimately destroyed much

of Cloquet and the Fond du Lac Indian Reservation on Oct. 12. On that day, it raced at 65 mph at times, sweeping into Saginaw, Pike Lake, townships north of Duluth, Duluth’s Woodland, Lakeside and Lester Park neighborhoods and up the North Shore.

People fled by train, car, horse and buggy and on foot. Some survived by lying in ditches, lakes and other waterways.

According to “Fire Storm: The Great Fires of 1918,” written by Christine Skalko and Marlene Wisuri, Evelyn Erickson’s family escaped on foot to Dunlap Island in Cloquet. Hunkered down, they saw gasoline storage tanks burn and the fire leap from section to section of the town.

“Exclamations could be heard such as: ‘There goes

the library.’ ‘That’s the high school going up in smoke.’ Or ‘The city hall has caught now,’” Erickson said.

The towns of Cloquet, Brookston, Moose Lake, Automba and Kettle River were decimated. Cloquet residents had warning, and left town on trains, leaving most homes to burn. More than 100 people died in Pike Lake, but the greatest loss of life was in Moose Lake with over 200 dead, dozens killed while driving away from the fire at a deadly curve in a road obscured by smoke. Many in rural parts burned or suffocated in wells and root cellars. Some who sought refuge in lakes drowned when their vessels were capsized by powerful winds.

Ruins of Northland Country Club in Duluth after the 1918 fire. Courtesy of Archives and Special Collections, Kathryn A. Martin Library, University of Minnesota Duluth.

Winds off Lake Superior, however, saved much of Duluth. Parts of the city still suffered heavy damages, the Woodland neighborhood among them.

While the Nopeming Sanatorium and the St. James Catholic Orphanage, with more than 100 children inside, escaped unscathed, Homecroft School, Northland Country Club and many farms were destroyed.

People survived through interesting and often heroic means.

A Calvary Cemetery gravedigger escaped death by hiding in a freshly-dug grave. A woman in a township north of Duluth saved 17 neighborhood children when she rounded them up inside her root cellar. In desperation, one woman threw her child into a passing open-topped car jammed with people, en route from rural Hermantown. She was then picked up by another car that came along.

Refugees were brought to the Duluth Armory and hospitals (a situation that eventually worsened the flu epidemic).

The National Guard, the Home Guard and the Red Cross tended to the thousands of refugees following the fire, helping them find lost family members and giving food, medical care and shelter. Residents around the Northland — including those in Duluth, Superior and Proctor — offered services and supplies.

“Fire Storm” also recounts a story from survivor Pearl Drew, who spent a night in the Superior YMCA.

“I went to the Y, where volunteers were making thousands of sandwiches and gallons of coffee,” Drew said. “Mattresses were spread over the large gym floor, each one a haven of a foreign family. They would not be separated for a minute. With their few belongings in a sack, the mother clutched it firmy and would not budge. The family moved as a whole, or not at all.”

‘Real survivors’

In the end, more than 52,000 lives were affected by the fires, with more than 100 dying from the flu and pneumonia in the days that followed. Property damage was estimated at $100 million, according to John Furr, who spoke at the 99th commemoration of the fires in 2017 representing the state Department of Natural Resources’ forestry division. That figure included more than 4,000 houses and 6,300 barns. The fires of 1918, he said, still stand out for the devastation they caused, even compared with recent California wildfires.

After the 1918 fires, many returned to their properties to find very little remaining, or nothing at all.

The approach to the Interstate Bridge was destroyed by the fire. Courtesy of Archives and Special Collections, Kathryn A. Martin Library, University of Minnesota Duluth.

“We thought we were the only people living because everything was gone,” Jenny Isaacson told Glenn Maxham for his book “Hell Fire and Damnation.”

“We could dig some potatoes. Yes, we got along OK,” Isaacson said. “But you know, when you lost everything you’re a little bit out of your mind.”

Thousands of farm animals and 41 schools were destroyed. Nearly 40 towns, villages and rural communities were damaged or destroyed, with fires

ranging from Moose Lake to Chisholm — a difference of 90 miles, according to Maxham.

Two sawmills in Cloquet survived, helping the town rebuild. Others rebuilt, too. As Len Schmidt, past president of the Moose Lake Area Historical Society told the News Tribune in 2003, “The people came back. They never gave up. And they sure could have. … This story shows how people back then were real survivors.” u

WELCOME TO CLOQUET!

Here we will be featuring lodging, outdoor activities, historical sites and more!

A city of contrasts and exciting discoveries, Cloquet Minnesota, offers a variety of festivals and events held throughout the year catering for all ages and interests. Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter!

For more Cloquet area information, please visit our website at www.visitcloquet.com.

Cloquet Office of Tourism

‘THE STARS WOULD FALL OUT OF THE SKY’

Moose Lake Area Historical Society commemorates 1918 fires

By Jack Nissen jnissen@duluthnews.com

Some waded into the lake to escape the flames. Others drove their cars into the water until the engine gave out. One man even fashioned together a raft.

“He took all the doors off his house and built a raft on the lake,” said Steve Olson, executive director of the Moose Lake Area Historical Society. “While they were on the raft, a bear and a moose tried to climb on there with him.”

At least, that’s how the story goes.

It’s one of many coming from the 1918 inferno that devastated Moose Lake and much of Northeastern Minnesota a century ago.

“I just can’t even imagine the agony those people went through and those animals went through,” said Natalie Frohrip, former executive director of the society. “It’s just hard to believe.”

The flames came quickly. After six hours, the blaze had subsided, but that’s because there was little fuel left to fan the flames. Only about a dozen structures were left standing and hundreds died. Most of the economy went up in flames with the city.

Banks, hotels, general stores and the area’s big lumber yards were all gone. Only a few city dwellers died. Most of the casualties were from farms outside of the city, where people had nowhere to flee.

“The conditions for something like this were absolutely perfect,” Frohrip said.

The fires, she said, which were started by sparks from a train, were inevitable. The area was in the second year of an extreme drought. Humidity was high and the logging industry hadn’t picked up a lot of the dead branches and wood when it came through.

“That had accumulated for years,” said Frohrip. “And it took just one little spark and ‘boom,’ you had a

A grave marker in Moose Lake’s Riverside Cemetery illustrates part of the human cost of the 1918 fires -- an entire family of five killed in the blaze. An estimated 453 people died in the fires. Steve Kuchera / skuchera@duluthnews.com

holocaust.”

Frohrip’s mother-in-law was 15 years old when the city burned. Despite the trauma of the event, she was encouraged by her husband to document the experience.

“She had been going to Sunday school, and in Sunday school she learned that when the end of the world would come, stars would fall out of the sky,” Frohrip said. “So when she was coming down the hill and saw all the sparks, she was sure this was the end.”

Her story was one of many ranging from the strange to the harrowing. People discovered potatoes in the ground already baked due to the intense heat.

Continued on page 10

A visitor examines a list of victims of the 1918 fires in the Moose Lake Area Historical Society museum. Steve Kuchera / skuchera@duluthnews.com

A 27-foot-tall obelisk stands in the area of Moose Lake’s Riverside Cemetery where approximately 200 victims of the 1918 fires were buried in a mass grave. Steve Kuchera / skuchera@duluthnews.com

“A lot of people did leave. They were just so discouraged. But there were a lot of them that stayed and persevered and rebuilt.”

In a particularly tragic tale, one family locked its kids in the cellar and continually poured water on the doors to keep it from catching. When it was all over, the parents had survived, but their kids had suffocated from a lack of oxygen robbed by the fires.

When the governor at the time received a telegram asking for assistance, the request was made for clothing for 3,000 people, and 300 caskets.

Despite the destruction, the city made quick progress in rebuilding. By 1928, most of it had been reconstructed.

“You really have to admire those people,” Frohrip said. “A lot of people did leave. They were

Natalie Frohrip, vice president of the Moose Lake Area Historical Society, talks about the fires of 1918 as Steve Olson, the group’s executive director, listens. Visible behind and above them is part of the museum’s new mural of scenes from the conflagration, which killed an estimated 453 people. Steve Kuchera / skuchera@duluthnews.com

The front page of the Oct. 15, 1918, News Tribune was dominated by news of the fires and of World War I. The actual death toll was lower than originally estimated. Steve Kuchera / skuchera@duluthnews.com

just so discouraged. But there were a lot of them that stayed and persevered and rebuilt.”

The Moose Lake Area Historical Society Museum sits inside the historic Soo Line Depot — one of the structures

that didn’t burn to the ground. While there are relics of the area’s past throughout the museum, the main exhibit involves the 1918 fires, a testament to those who experienced destruction on such a grand scale.

“Well, you remember the victims, you honor the survivors and you give thanks to the people that stayed,” Frohrip said. “And that’s what we’re trying to do.” u

Natalie Frohrip, vice president of the Moose Lake Area Historical Society, stands inside one of the cabins the Red Cross built to house survivors of the 1918 fires, which killed 453 people and destroyed an estimated 4,039 houses. This cabin was moved next to the Moose Lake museum and dedicated earlier this year. Steve Kuchera / skuchera@duluthnews.com

‘Hellfire in Hermantown’

As fires raged across northern Minnesota, Hermantown was in their path

By Jack Nissen Jnissen@duluthnews.com

The 1918 fires charred Moose Lake, burned Cloquet and torched Kettle River. But have you heard of the hellfire in Hermantown?

“No one knows that Hermantown had a fire,” said Delaine Carlson of the Hermantown Historical Society. “They think it’s Cloquet, they think it’s Moose Lake, but it wasn’t just there.”

Published in preparation for the 100th anniversary of the inferno that tore through northern Minnesota 100 years ago, “Hellfire in Hermantown” documents the stories of when the flames reached the small town.

“I decided to write the book last year and make sure it got out,” said Connie Jacobson, author of the book. “I thought jeez, someone’s gotta tell the Hermantown story.”

The 115-page publication chronicles events that lead up to the fire and the destruction left in its wake, as well as stories about the people who experienced the fire firsthand. While the book provides historical background on wildfires, the influenza outbreak and the conditions that led to such an extreme event, it’s the personal accounts that craft a more vivid story.

Jacobson found many of the stories in archived newspapers, the public library and relatives and friends who had stories of their own to tell.

One describes balls of fire being “blown by the wind to other groups of trees.” The tall

evergreens growing at the time became easy targets for the fire that was being blown by roaring winds. Another tells of a family that spent most of the night the fire hit inside an old well near their house.

A particularly harrowing retelling of the tragedy comes from Dagmar Westin, who was 7 years old at the time.

“There were endless miles of charred trees, hanging everywhere, ready to fall at a moment’s notice. Everything was black — ‘black everywhere.’ To add to the black ugliness, the Red Cross fire shacks were covered with ugly black tar-paper, amid the black ruins of forests.”

“There were some stories that just left me with heartache,” said Jacobson. “I just felt so bad for the people and can’t imagine how they lived through it.”

While Jacobson doesn’t live in Hermantown, she has strong family ties to the area. She’s related to the people who founded the town. Her dad was 5 years old when the fires hit. Her mother knew many survivors of the fire.

“My mother went to school with people who had burned in the fire and people that had scars the rest of their lives; that really pains them because medical treatments were so primitive,” she said.

After the main fire subsided, it was a week before any rain came. Smaller fires would reignite on remaining fuel. Jacobson said the story taught lessons and paid respect to those that experienced the fire.

“They deserve to be remembered and their struggles not forgotten,” she said. u

The so-called “Death Curve” on the road to Pike Lake. Blinded by smoke, cars ran into the ditch in a multiple pile-up with drivers losing their lives. Courtesy of Archives and Special Collections, Kathryn A. Martin Library, University of Minnesota Duluth

Timeline of the res

1918 1916

Two years of unusually dry weather in the Arrowhead begin, preparing conditions for a major fire.

October 10

October 4

Sparks from a train ignite a small but persistent fire near Tamarack in Aitkin County, northwest of the Kettle River. This becomes the main source of the Moose Lake Fire.

October 12

Sparks from a train ignite another small but persistent fire—this one at Milepost 62 near Brookston, four miles northwest of Cloquet. This will become the main source of the Cloquet–Duluth Fire.

A cool front enters Minnesota from the northwest, bringing high winds and a sudden drop in humidity—the two remaining elements needed for a major fire. At about 1:30 p.m. both the Cloquet–Duluth and Moose Lake fires begin to move.

October 12

3:30 p.m.

4 p.m.

The first known death occurs when Laura Miettunen is thrown from a fleeing car near Brookston. Her body is never found.

Winds exceed seventy-five miles per hour. Soon, the Duluth sky is so dark from smoke that street lights are turned on.

Looking east over the ruins left behind after the 1918 fire. Carlton County Historical Society

Remains of the Moose Lake School after the devastating fire. Carlton County Historical Society

Carlton County Historical Society

p.m.

The fire reaches Kettle River. Seventy-five to one hundred people are killed at a highway turn called Dead Man’s Curve south of the town.

Fire reaches Duluth

7:30 p.m.

October 13

Fire reaches Moose Lake Flames chase the last relief train out of Cloquet.

Cars in the ditch along the side of a road near Cloquet. Many drivers lost their way in the heavy smoke from the fire and drove off the road. Carlton County Historical Society

10 p.m. The fires have subsided. Later in the day, a statewide relief effort begins that grows to include the Minnesota Home Guard, National Guard, Motor Corps, Red Cross, and other groups.

October 16

1935

October 19

The Minnesota Commission of Public Safety meets at Moose Lake and creates the Minnesota Forest Fires Relief Commission to oversee relief work.

Heavy rains douse what little remains of the fires.

The last of the litigation arising from the fires is resolved by large payments from the railroads, authorized by President Franklin Roosevelt on August 27.

SOURCE: Minnesota Historical Society NEWS TRIBUNE GRAPHICS

Ruins of Homecroft School in Duluth after the 1918 fire. Courtesy of Archives and Special Collections, Kathryn A. Martin Library, University of Minnesota Duluth

Winds whipped up by the 1918 fire bent trees over in the Cloquet area. Carlton County Historical Society

Cloquet Library after the 1918 fire. Carlton County Historical Society

Rebuilding Cloquet after the 1918 fire. Carlton County Historical Society

People prepare the mass grave at Riverside Cemetery in Moose Lake, Minn. for the victims of the Fires of 1918. Historical photo courtsey of the Moose Lake Historical Society.

A home in Cloquet in ruins after the 1918 fire. Carlton County Historical Society

Cloquet High School after the devastating 1918 fire. Carlton County Historical Society

Some motorists drove into Moose Lake to save themselves and their cars. Courtesy of Archives and Special Collections, Kathryn A. Martin Library, University of Minnesota Duluth

The city of Cloquet in ruins after the 1918 fire. Carlton County Historical Society

A burned telegraph pole hangs from telegraph wires in Cloquet after the 1918 fire. Carlton County Historical Society

Damage in the city of Cloquet as a result of the 1918 fire. Carlton County Historical Society

Legends, lore and lies:

BEER BOOM

There is a legend in Cloquet that paints Cloquet Depot Agent Lawrence Fauley as one of the biggest heroes of the 1918 fires.

“No account of the time would have adequate historical value if there were complete omission of the name of one, whose courage and foresight did much to relieve the danger and suffering for the people of Cloquet: Lawrence Fauley, Depot Agent,” Lucille Booker Watkins wrote in 1936, in an introduction to a collection of essays about the fire submitted to the Women’s Friday Club contest.

There is a park named after Fauley in the heart of Cloquet, where a giant steam engine reminds people of the thousands who escaped the city by train that terrible night and historic panels tell visitors about Fauley, Cloquet and the fire.

However, writings by the newspaper editor’s then 14-year-old daughter, Kathryn Elfes, reveal Fauley may not have been the calm, cool and collected depot master that legend made him out to be.

“There were four relief trains to take out most of the 7,000 residents of Cloquet (few went in cars) plus the farm families who came in with teams and unhitched the poor horses to fend for themselves,” Elfes wrote in a manuscript, “Family Facts and Fancies, Also Legends, Lore and Lies” that she penned in 1959, 41 years after the fire.

Continued on page 20

By Jana Peterson jpeterson@pinejournal.com

Cloquet Depot Agent Lawrence Fauley was considered one of the heroes of the 1918 fires, for his role in getting between 7,000-8,000 Cloquet residents out of town on Oct. 12, 1918, when most of the city was destroyed by fire. According to an account of the fire written years later by the newspaper editor’s then 14-year-old daughter, the accounts of his heroism were likely exaggerated. Photo courtesy Carlton County Historical Society

Fauley Park was named after Cloquet Depot Agent Lawrence Fauley, for his alleged heroism and foresight the night of the 1918 fires, when most of the town was evacuated by train. The steam engine at the park, old No. 16, was sitting in the roundhouse on Dunlap Island on the night of the fire and burned, but was restored and rode the rails for many more years before it eventually came to rest at Fauley Park. Jana Peterson/jpeterson@pinejournal.com

She described how the Gilbert passenger train left first for Duluth, with only women and children allowed on board. Next were two empty ore trains returning from the docks to the Iron Range that had been set out in Cloquet because they couldn’t get through the Brookston area, which had gone up in flames that afternoon.

By the time the Elfes family arrived, one of those ore trains had left for Carlton and the other was nearly full. Her father, Pine Knot editor Orlo Elfes, chose to take the family to the fourth train, made up of a motley assortment of box cars, afraid that one of the flaming boards that filled the air would land in the open ore cars. Her father picked up her mother, then her, then the suitcases and threw them in the box car.

Kathryn recalled sitting in the box car, watching the YMCA and the Cloquet Hotel burn while they waited for the small switch engine to hook up to the train. Meanwhile, the second ore train left and the depot caught fire.

“Our train was pulled down the tracks next to the big storage tanks of gasoline,” she writes. “No more people were getting on now, but one could hear the scream of terrified horses running madly in the street, the wail of the demon wind, the hiss of burning timbers, the roar of flames, the train whistle and bells and the never ceasing siren.”

Here Kathryn’s tale departs from the established legend of the Fauley’s heroism:

“The station agent walked past our box car with a dazed expression on his flame-lit face,” she wrote in her revelatory account of the fire. “Papa, who knew that (the) last two box cars had actually caught fire and the flames had been beaten out with wet coats, asked when we were leaving — it seemed a little too hot for comfort.

“The agent answered like a person in a dream that they couldn’t take passengers out on a passenger track without standard passenger equipment and those were the regulations. Papa snorted, ‘Regulations — hell!’”

Now comes the stuff of real legend: how a newspaper editor and a police chief worked together to overcome one man’s bureaucratic meltdown.

“Then the Chief of Police, John McSweeney, in his big fur coat that was practically a trademark with him, came up and Papa repeated the agent’s unbelievable statement,” she continued in her account. “McSweeney was horrified. Papa asked if he had a gun and in rich Irish brogue McSweeney stated he had two of them. He opened his coat to show the revolvers strapped to his belt. Papa said, “Well, for God’s sake,

put one of them at the engineer’s head if you have to, but let’s get out of here!”

According to her story, McSweeney swung into the cab of the locomotive, which began to move slowly toward Carlton, stopping at mill crossings to pick up men (since the lumber and paper companies ran the mills until 9 p.m. that night) and stopping in Scanlon until the cars were full.

Although her stories were written 50 years ago or more, author Curt Brown wrote about her “far less heroic version” in his new book: “Minnesota 1918: When Flu, Fire and War Ravaged the State.”

Brown discovered the less-flattering account of Fauley’s behavior in a box of “the Gray Papers” — Kathryn wrote under the name of Kathryn Elfes Casher and Kathryn Elfes Gray at different times of her life — at the Minnesota History Center. The Pine Journal traveled to the Gale Family Library there to confirm and read more from Kathryn, who wrote a series of columns and history pieces for the Pine Knot newspaper in the 1960s and ’70s. Fellow 1918 writer Francis Carroll remembers reading many of Kathryn Elfes Gray’s columns in newspapers that his uncle would save for him.

The box also included a five-page essay on the 1918 fires written by Kathryn a few years after the family manuscript, on the 50th anniversary of the fire. There are more details in the slightly more dramatic later essay, although the facts of the story remain the same.

“Tradition has it that when the Chief of Police told the engineer to ‘get moving,’ the answer was ‘I can’t, I am waiting for orders,’” she wrote. “In his County Cork brogue, McSweeney answered, ‘Here are your orders!’ showing the loaded guns. The engine started. Two men with lanterns, one of them the station agent, were on the cowcatcher, the iron framework of railroad locomotives of that era.”

In the 1968 essay, she gives much of the credit for anticipating and preparing for the disaster to Cloquet Mayor John Long:

“He had seen the disaster coming all afternoon, had made plans; organized street runners to knock on every door, sent his own car, loaded with family, driven by his teenage son to Duluth, had demanded box cars be emptied of cargo though he was warned not to; and the thousands of people who escaped that flaming night of terror owned their lives to MAYOR JOHN LONG.” u

As people fled from the flames Oct. 12, 1918, others sped toward it, filling their cars with evacuees and driving them to safety.

Motor Corps helped save people, property

By Jimmy Lovrien jlovrien@duluthnews.com

Volunteers of the Motor Corps, part of the Minnesota Home Guard, were called into duty just before 6 p.m. as “a heavy pall of smoke clouded the city,” according to a Nov. 3, 1918 report written by Maj. Roger M. Weaver.

Heading first to the Woodland neighborhood, one of the worst-hit by fire in Duluth, corps members drove people to the Duluth Armory for shelter and helped battle fires. Before long, they requested any working vehicle in the city be put to use.

Unpaid and responsible for any vehicle repairs — but reimbursed for gas and oil — the corps continued to help the relief effort for weeks after the blaze.

“The saving of life and property, the rapid transportation of troops and supplies, would have been impossible, or greatly hampered without this valuable organization,” Weavers wrote.

The News Tribune predicted these men would be remembered as heroes in an Oct. 18, 1918 article.

“When the historians of the north get around to writing the story of this widespread and horrifying catastrophe some day, they will include the work of these men who dropped everything to plunge into a maelstrom of movement, and every movement vital to somebody’s welfare, somewhere,” the News Tribune wrote.

They were right. Nearly 100 years later, Dan Hartman, director of Glensheen Mansion and a local history buff, is among the dozens of historians who stress the importance of the Motor Corps when discussing the 1918 fire.

According to Hartman, there were a number of veterans who sought to serve their country again in the military but were deemed physically unfit to do so.

Instead, Hartman said they formed Home Corps units, one of which was called the Motor Corps, a group equipped with modest vehicles, mostly Ford Model Ts.

“In case of emergencies, they’d go and help people in their small vehicles. And everywhere else in Minnesota, you could generally say they were a huge waste of taxpayer money,” Hartman said.

Prior to the fire, the Motor Corps wasn’t celebrated. Unions feared the Home Guard and Motor Corps would be used to break up strikes while others saw the organization as a waste of resources.

Just eight days before the fire, the Mesaba Council of Defense president argued in a letter to the editor printed in the News Tribune that the Range Motor

Corps was a waste of gasoline and “has been driving around the country presumably gathering up slackers.”

“But in the 1918 fire, they were insanely resourceful,” Hartman said. “These retirees saved hundreds of lives, driving into really dangerous situations, piling families onto their cars and saving them from the fires.”

In the weeks following the fire, their responsibilities moved from fighting fires and rescuing victims to clearing roads, recovering and burying bodies, transporting construction crews tasked with rebuilding neighborhoods and bringing supplies to area farms. As the flu outbreak of 1918 persisted, the Motor Corps helped transport patients, too.

And with that, the perception of the Motor Corps changed.

For their efforts, the state of Minnesota awarded the Motor Corps, Home Guards and National Guards with Bronze Medals.

Minnesota Gov. Joseph A. A. Burnquist also credited the Motor Corps for its heroism, according to an interview in the Duluth Herald on Oct. 18, 1918.

“We could not have made it out at all without the Motor Reserve Corps,” Burnquist said. “Through these splendid volunteers we have been able to reach the survivors everywhere without loss of precious

time.”

The corps was celebrated throughout the News Tribune’s pages for weeks, too.

In an Oct. 28, 1918 letter to the editor, John Lane said he was impressed with the Motor Corps.

“I do not believe too much praise can be given to the motor corps and the Duluth Home guards for what they have done and are doing,” Lane wrote. “I hope we will all bear in mind the spirit of these times is to: ‘Help those who need help, and keep on helping.’” u

Fire nurses and the National Guard attend to victims in the wake of the 1918 fire. Carlton County Historical Society

A National Guardsman watches over the Cloquet Auto and Supply Company in the wake of the 1918 fire. Courtesy of Archives and Special Collections, Kathryn A. Martin Library, University of Minnesota Duluth

By Shelley Nelson snelson@superiortelegram.com

Superior had already seen an influx of people to serve the war industries in October 1918. On the afternoon of Oct. 12, 1918 — a Saturday — the sky in Superior resembled an inverted copper bowl. A smoky haze, and at times, a pungent woodfire odor was present in the Twin Ports.

Over in Minnesota, just across the border, galeforce winds fanned smoldering flames into a hurricane of blazing embers blowing in all directions. The tinder-dry forests in the areas of Brookston, Moose Lake and Cloquet became a furnace. By late afternoon, calls for help reach Duluth and Superior.

Superior was probably less prepared than other cities its size to house, clothe, feed and shelter several thousand refugees in a 24-hour period because of the war industries influx, according to a March 1920 Wisconsin Chapter American Red Cross report.

However, when the trains started to arrive around 11:30 p.m., Superior leaders were organized and city residents stepped in to help those fleeing the fire that burned an area of about 1,500 square miles, forcing thousands to flee their homes and farms.

The Evening Telegram reported “the people of Superior are rising as one to the emergency, supplying food, clothing and lodging as needed, with money as required by urgent cases.”

Jed Carlson/ jcarlson@superiortelegram.com

Mayor A.F. Baxter had been elected in the spring of that year, said Tony Tracy, director of the Douglas County Historical Society. Baxter had previously served as a senator in the Wisconsin Legislature.

“The great thing is it got be be 8 and 9 o’clock, and they saw these flames, and he remembered the Hinckley Fire of 1894,” Tracy said. “And he remembered what a cluster it was but at the same time what a role the railroads played in getting the survivors out.”

Tracy said Superior’s mayor anticipated the influx of refugees, and Superior’s leading men met at the Union Depot to devise a plan.

“He got with his people and the American Red Cross, and they totally organized over here,” Tracy said. “It’s just such an amazing story. They got together with shop owners and people brought cars. They had a couple different train stations that were rolling at that time so they had people at them both. As people got off the train, they wrote down their name and they assigned them to somebody, and they drove them to … whatever buildings were up at that time.”

According to the Telegram, businesses, service clubs, schools, department stores and other public buildings were opened to thousands of refugees.

Many refugees were sent to private residences to sleep for the night when they arrived. Early Sunday morning, the Commercial Club was established as a clearing house where refugees names and temporary addresses were registered. Records showed 3,028 families completed a registration.

“Sunday night every refugee in Superior slept in a real bed, and many families who had offered

accommodations were put on a ‘waiting list’ since every refugee was provided for,” according to the Wisconsin American Red Cross.

“The fire relief committee of the Superior chapter of the American Red Cross is entitled to a great share of commendation for the splendid and effective work which it performed in the emergency and continued to perform for many months following the fire,” the Minnesota Forest Fires Relief Commission wrote in its 1921 final report. According to the commission, the Superior Fire Relief Committee raised more than $128,000 to help with the relief effort. About 30 percent of the donations were returned to the donors after expenses for food, housing, furniture, clothing, health care and medicines, burials, transportation, sundries and cash grants were taken out of the funds.

“When they left, they left with 100 bucks, and stuff that they were given while they were here to get their lives going again,” Tracy said. “And 100 bucks in 1918 was pretty generous.”

In fact, $100 in 1918 is worth almost $1,800 today, according to a calculator provided by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“Words can never express the spirit of helpfulness extended to the fire refugees by the city of Superior,” a Red Cross social worker wrote in her report about the fire. u

An actual pamphlet from 1919 sits in a display at the Douglas County Historical Society in Superior. Jed Carlson/jcarlson@superiortelegram.com

Flu adds to fire’s toll

Outbreak claimed many survivors’ lives

By Peter Passi ppassi@duluthnews.com

The devastating Oct. 12 fires could hardly have struck the Northland at a more vulnerable time, just as a virulent and deadly strain of influenza swept into the region.

Duluth and surrounding communities were bracing to deal with the outbreak in the very days leading up to the fire, said Dan Hartman, a local history buff and director of Glensheen Mansion.

“The craziest part of the fire is the flu, and that just days before the fire hits Duluth, the flu does. So the entire town goes into lockdown,” he said.

On Oct. 11, 1918, Duluth ordered the closure of nearly all major public gathering places — including churches, schools and theaters — to slow the deadly flu virus’ transmission. The following day, it even forbade public funerals, allowing only close family members of the dead to attend services.

But a more imminent threat loomed on that same date, as a series of fires converged into a massive blaze, killing 453 people and displacing thousands more. The survivors were pushed into crowded shelters, where influenza soon set in.

In its final report on the 1918 fire, the Minnesota Forest Fires Relief Commission said: “The influenza epidemic became severe in the fire-swept district soon after the relief work began. The crowding of refugees together, the weakening of the resistance through hardship and worry, the nervous strain put upon the people generally, whether they were directly affected by the fire or not, undoubtedly contributed to the spread of the disease.”

“Emergency hospitals were established, the commission taking over any building that could be made suitable for this purpose,” the report went on to say, noting that it was “compelled to operate four hospitals for a considerable period, the last one being closed in the fall of 1920.”

Hartman said Duluth was a natural magnet for people displaced by the fire.

“Everyone needed a place to go, and where would they go for aid? They all went into sites like the Duluth Armory and other large complexes,” he said.

The city of Superior also played a major role in providing assistance, with 4,699 “Minnesota refugees” of the fires counted Oct. 27, 1918, according to a report by the Superior Fire Relief Committee.

The report went on to describe the immediate aftermath: “The Health Committee reported that: It was handicapped by the absence of the considerable number of doctors in Army service and further embarrassed because the doctors here were already overtaxed in caring for influenza; there was a

considerable number of injured among the fire sufferers and many cases of illness, most of them the result of exposure; all doctors of the town were giving their entire time, without rest; the hospitals were overcrowded; it was planned to open an emergency hospital the next morning; the number of hospital and other cases could not then be given; the doctors very much feared an influenza epidemic among the fire sufferers.”

The outcome for the Twin Ports was predictable, Hartman said: “So the flu just spikes, and it’s hard to tell the exact number of people who died between the flu and the fire. It was just a terrible tragedy.”

More than 100 documented deaths of fire survivors were directly attributed to the flu outbreak.

The Superior Fire Relief Committee said the number of disaster survivors exposed to the influenza “increased so greatly that very few families escaped it, for their strength and power to resist disease had been diminished by their suffering and exposure to fire and weather conditions. The work planned by the Superior Committee had to be postponed

for a time because every available helper was needed to care for the fire sufferers who were ill.”

Of course when the fires struck, many Northland residents also were worried about the welfare of family members serving overseas in World War I.

Hartman set the scene, saying: “A lot of families are losing their loved ones at the time the flu shows up, and then the fire shows up. So, you have these three really dramatic events overlapping each other.”

The brutal war ended in November 1918, but many Northland veterans who survived combat would return home only to find family members dead, displaced or battling for life against the flu.

In 1918 alone, 281 deaths in Duluth were attributed to the flu outbreak — not all, but many likely related to to the fires.

The pandemic that began in 1918 lasted for more than two years and went on to kill more than 50 million people worldwide; 675,000 in the U.S. and more than 12,000 in Minnesota. u

Refugees of the 1918 fire line up for help in Duluth’s Armory. They are wearing facemasks because of the influenza virus rampant then. Courtesy of Archives and Special Collections, Kathryn A. Martin Library, University of Minnesota Duluth

Refugees from the 1918 fire in Duluth get help at the Duluth Armory. Courtesy of Archives and Special Collections, Kathryn A. Martin Library, University of Minnesota Duluth

Could fires like 1918 happen again? Experts say probably not

Avery specific set of circumstances led to the catastrophic fires of 1918. It’s not impossible, but it does appear unlikely it could happen again.

“You have a whole mix of contributors — the railroad, the logging operations that had slash piles, a lot of the farm clearings and the drought they had that summer and fall,” said Josh Muchow, a forester with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. “Today a lot of those factors don’t exist or are minimized.”

What’s more, firefighters are faster and better equipped than they’ve ever been.

“Our technology for fire suppression, as well as response, is so much better. We spend a lot of time and money on training and putting fires out,” said Lane Johnson, research forester at the Cloquet Forestry Center. “In the Carlton County area, it’s very unlikely that something like it could occur again, but that doesn’t mean we couldn’t have drought-driven fires in dry years that could affect life and property.”

Even in extreme conditions, the scale of any big blaze will be limited thanks to roads and readiness.

“We just have so many more volunteer fire departments that are so much more rapidly available and respond much more quickly than they could back in 1918,” Muchow said. “The potential to get as large is fairly minimized, unless there’s a huge large area of grassland with high winds — and even then it’s not as great as it was, because we have so many resources and access.”

Railcars still cause fires from time to time, but not

By Brooks Johnson bjohnson@duluthnews.com

The Cloquet City Hall and Jail after the 1918 fire swept through. Refugees came to receive a free lunch. Photo taken October 15, 1918.

Carlton County Historical Society

with the frequency they once did. And railroads have plenty more fire-response equipment on hand when brakes or bearings throw sparks and ignite nearby brush.

Forests are still harvested for timber, but without the slash piles that provide fuel for the hottest fires. Further, the forest landscapes have long since lost most of the vulnerable and fire-prone pines and more fire-resistant species like aspen have taken their place, at least in forests closest to cities.

“Further north, in the Boundary Waters and in Northwestern Ontario, there is potential for larger events in those areas that are less developed,” Johnson said.

Fire suppression itself can lead to forest fires as easy-burning wood builds up, and as Xcel Energy shuts its biomass plants, additional fuel could remain in the forests.

“We’re trying to reduce fuel loading, and that ends up being expensive,” said Steve Olson, forest manager for the Fond du Lac Reservation. “We lost the biomass

market and can’t get rid of that extra fuel as easily.”

Johnson notes there are many ecological benefits to natural forest fires, though the nature, timing and intensity of those fires could change in the coming decades.

“Predictions suggest warmer temps and more variable precipitation — not necessarily less rain but the time between events is more drawn out, and there’s potential for drought conditions between those events,” he said.

If there is a worst-case scenario awaiting us, it will probably be caused by humans.

“Right now, our primary ignition source is still the human factor, and we’ll still have people who burn illegally or unintentionally and don’t understand the fire danger,” Muchow said. “It’s always good to be aware the potential is still there, and people should always be diligent, making sure campfires are out and cold. And if they are going to do any burning or brush piles, make sure they’re getting a permit.” u

A “moonscape” in the Cloquet area after the fire went through.

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