A brush fire also flared, fanned by a rising wind. Box 18438 | Minneapolis, MN 55418 | View of the Hinckley main street the morning after the fire, 1894.Member donations are crucial to the work of our nonprofit newsroom. It became known as the Great Hinckley Fire. Estimates of lives lost vary, but all exceed 400, more than the Chicago Fire of 1871.In 1891, at age 16, Clara Hansen (my future grandmother) had immigrated to Hinckley from Fredrikstad, Norway, with her mother, Sophia, and three brothers, Ole, 14, Hans, 12, and John Norvall, 10. Suddenly the people of Hinckley were not facing a fire.

SOUTHWEST HARBOR — A fire, believed to be started by lightning, destroyed part of an office building owned by Hinckley Yachts on Saturday.. Grandma Clara and the wagonload of evacuees were among them.On September 7, 1894, one week after the fire, the The newspaper ran lists telling where refugees were located, helping many families to be reunited, among them the Hansens except for Sophia. Within hours, the After the fire had passed, relief supplies poured in from surrounding communities and Hinckley was quickly rebuilt. It's a number that trails only the The summer of 1894 was dry, dusty and smoky across east-central Minnesota. We rely on your help to do this. The driver pinned her to the wagon’s floor with the heel of his boot. This memorial to the victims of the 1894 fire stands near “The Pit,” a portion of a gravel pit beside Eastern Railway line where about 100 found refuge from the flames in the water pooled there.Truth is stranger than fiction,” Mark Twain observed, “but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn’t.”I’m not sure if this true story from our family is stranger than fiction, but my grandmother did not make it up. That may have left residents complacent when two more fires started on Sept. 1. Regardless, it couldn’t head back because Eastern’s daily passenger train No. Our reporters are only able to do their work thanks to support at all levels. The Triumph factory " could collapse at any minute " , claim fire fighters who spent the entire weekend battling a blaze there. According to the 1994 MPR story, the burned-over land — cleared of stumps and logging debris — was put into use for farming.All survivors of the Hinckley fire are now long deceased, but their stories live on at the And traces of the fire still linger in the area, just beneath the surface. The story of the Hinckley Fire of September 1, 1894, is a tragic saga of destruction, terror, courage, heroism, and death. Until September 1, the fires had been suppressed.The Hinckley fire began as two separate fires—one south of Mission Creek and the other south of Brook Park. Then, in 1870 the lumbering companies arrived bringing with them many lumbering camps, saw mills, railroads and finally villages developed. She has been a history buff ever since she took a Minnesota history class in grade school.MinnPost | P.O. When William threatened to uncouple, he was overruled by his conductor, who had seniority over both crews. They headed north in the dark of the dense smoke.Another grave danger lay in the shadows ahead: Would the Kettle River Bridge bear this heavy burden?After the double train passed through Sandstone, the Kettle’s steel and timber trestle 150 feet above the river was already in flames.
He had come in 1888. Twenty-three people in Brook Park died when the fire roared through at 2 p.m. The Eastern Minnesota train left Hinckley with about four hundred fire refugees added to its existing passengers. A moment later, Sophia jumped off the wagon and ran back to their house, possibly to get a purse. Find it all in our convenient directory.©2020 Lake Superior Publishing LLC. By 3:30 p.m., people began a desperate run to save their lives. It raised over $90,000 to be used to help victims. They made it across. The Eastern Minnesota and St. Paul and Duluth railroads ran through Hinckley.

Fire Museums in Hinckley and Peshtigo. My great grandfather found work as a planer in a sawmill in Rutledge, about 55 miles southwest of Duluth, for a few years, but then moved to Duluth and became a storekeeper. "A trash fire got out of control, but its heat and smoke were trapped under the inversion. Its history ties closely to that of other northern towns and also links tightly to our own family story.

Minutes later, when the trains had steamed ahead less than 2,000 feet, the bridge’s wooden legs collapsed into the deep gorge. Many suffocated while taking refuge in root cellars and wells or died when the fire overcame them.At about 4:00 p.m., evacuation by train began. The 1894 Hinckley Fire destroyed six towns; Hinckley was the largest, with more than 1,000 residents, most of them recent arrivals from Sweden and Norway.

Heavy wool clothing saved one young woman, since it did not burn as easily as cotton.Many communities provided immediate relief and shelter for the survivors, including Pine City, Mora, Duluth, and Superior.


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