‘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 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.

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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 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