The Cloquet Fire
today-in-wwi
Cloquet after the fire.
October 12 1918, Cloquet–Minnesota suffered multiple tragedies in October 1918. In addition to the rising death toll among her soldiers in France, fire broke out in Northern Minnesota on October 10. By October 12, the fires had spread out of control, eventually destroying 38 towns and villages and burning nearly 400 square miles of land. 500 to 1000 people were killed in the fire; the destruction was so complete in places there are few reliable estimates. Regardless, it remains the second-deadliest wildfire in US history (after the Peshtigo Fire near Green Bay on the same day of the Great Chicago Fire in 1871). One refugee recalled:
As we went along I was reminded of the flight of the Belgians. There was the town burning behind us, and we were fleeing in a terror as real, if not so awful, as that from which they escaped. We passed a family of seven, trudging along, carrying two babes in arms. We stopped long enough to pick up the mother and babes, leaving the father and boys to follow on foot.
Over 50,000 people were displaced, and several thousand took refuge in Duluth, which had largely been spared when the wind changed direction at the last moment. The displacement and cramped conditions of the refugees unfortunately rendered them especially vulnerable to the Spanish flu, whose last and deadliest wave arrived in Duluth a week later. Already by October 12, the flu had caused a shutdown of essentially all public places in Minneapolis.
As was typically the case with such disasters during wartime, many initially blamed the fire on German agents. Tensions were already high in Minnesota, with a large population of immigrants from Germany or German-aligned countries; the previous month, a Finnish-American, Olli Kinkkonen, had been lynched in Duluth. However, in this case, it quickly became clear that the fires were caused by sparks from passing trains and exacerbated by the extremely dry conditions at the time.
Today in 1917: Passchendaele
Today in 1916: Prussian War Ministry Begins Jewish Census
Today in 1915: Edith Cavell and Philippe Baucq Executed
Today in 1914: Martial Law Declared in South Africa
Sources include: The Pine Journal (includes image credit).
