Stories of the Badger State

by Reuben Gold Thwaites

Gradually the "fire belt" broadened, and, finding better fuel, the flames strengthened; the swamps began to burn, to a depth of several feet; over hundreds of square miles the air was thick and stifling with smoke, so that the sun at noonday appeared like a great copper ball set on high; at night the heavens were lurid. Miles of burning woods were everywhere to be seen; hundreds of haystacks in the meadows, and great piles of logs and railroad ties and telegraph poles were destroyed.

For many weeks the towns along the bay shore were surrounded by cordons of threatening flame. The people of Pensaukee, Oconto, Little Suamico, Sturgeon Bay, Peshtigo, and scores of other settlements, were frequently called out by the fire bells to fight the insidious enemy; many a time were they apparently doomed to destruction, but constant vigilance and these occasional skirmishes for a time saved them.

Reports now began to come in, thick and fast, of settlers driven from blazing homes, of isolated sawmills and lumber camps destroyed, of bridges consumed, of thrilling escapes by lumbermen and farmers. On Sunday, the 8th of October, a two days' carnival of death began. In Brown, Kewaunee, Oconto, Door, Manitowoc, and Shawano counties the flames, suddenly rising, swept everything within their path. Where thriving, prosperous villages once had stood, blackened wastes appeared. Over a thousand lives were lost, nearly as many persons were crippled, and three thousand were in a few hours reduced to beggary. The horrors of the scenes at New Franken, Peshtigo, and the Sugar Bush, in particular, were such as cannot be described.

This appalling tragedy chanced to occur at the same time as vast prairie fires in Minnesota, and the terrible conflagration which destroyed Chicago. The civilized world stood aghast at the broad extent of the field of needed relief; nevertheless, the frenzied appeals for aid, issued in behalf of the Wisconsin fire sufferers, met with as generous a response as if they alone, in that fateful month of October, were the recipients of the nation's bounty. Train loads of clothing and provisions, from nearly every State in the Union, soon poured into Green Bay, which was the center of distribution; the United States government made large gifts of clothing and rations; nearly two hundred thousand dollars were raised, and expended under official control; and great emergency hospitals were opened at various points, for the treatment of sick and wounded.

As for the actual financial loss to the people of the burned district, that could never be estimated. The soil was, in many places, burned to the depth of several feet, nothing being left but sand and ashes; grass roots were destroyed; bridges and culverts were gone; houses, barns, cattle, tools, seed, and crops were no more. It was several years before the region began again to exhibit signs of prosperity.

In the year 1894, forest fires of an appalling magnitude once more visited Wisconsin, this time in the northwestern corner of the State. Again had there been an exceptionally dry winter, spring, and summer. The experience gained by lumbermen and forest settlers had made them more cautious than before, and more expert in the fighting of fires; but that year was one in which no human knowledge seemed to avail against the progress of flames once started on their career of devastation.

During the summer, several fires had burned over large areas. By the last week of July, it was estimated that five million dollars' worth of standing pine had been destroyed. The burned and burning area was now over fifty miles in width, the northern limit being some forty miles south of Superior. Upon the 27th of the month, the prosperous town of Phillips, wholly surrounded by deforested lands, was suddenly licked up by the creeping flames, the terrified inhabitants escaping by the aid of a railway train. Neighboring towns, which suffered to a somewhat less degree, were Mason, Barronett, and Shell Lake.

In 1898 Wisconsin was again a heavy sufferer from the same cause. The fires were chiefly in Barron county, upon the 29th and 30th of September. Two hundred fifty-eight families were left destitute, and the loss to land and property was estimated at $400,000. Relief agencies were established in various cities of the state, and our people responded as liberally to the urgent call for help as they had in 1871 and 1894.

A more competent official system of scientifically caring for our forests, restricting the present wasteful cutting of timber, and preventing and fighting forest fires, would be of incalculable benefit to the State of Wisconsin. The annual loss by burning is alone a terrible drain upon the resources of the people, to say nothing of the death and untold misery which stalk in the wake of a forest fire.