The Deadliest Fire in U.S. History- The Forgotten Fire/The Peshtigo Fire 1871
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 ส.ค. 2023
- The Peshtigo Fire and the Great Fires of 1871 burned the entire Upper Midwest of the United States for three days - known collectively as the Great Fires of 1871 - it burned simultaneously in Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois - and is known as the Forgotten Fire because the Chicago Fire brought all the attention (which was devastating on its own) but the worst of the fires burned farther north - and its devastation wiped some towns completely off the map. This episode of Midwest Ghost Town podcast will dive deeper surrounding the towns of Williamsonville and others.
I've been to Peshtigo. I grew up in Shawano. I'm so glad more of this story is being told. The story of O'Leary's cow in Chicago was a myth. Supposedly she was chastised for it. But much of the Great Lakes area was a huge forest land. And that whole area was a tinder box. Chicago, Peshtigo, Holland Michigan and much of the east of Holland was a huge tinderbox ready to go off. And we did not have the knowledge or equipment in those days to handle that. Many structures were wood built and we had to learn from that as well.
Great Job Dan.
Thanks for listening! Appreciate it.
thanks for this. Strange how I'd never even heard of this fire until this episode. I know it was because of the Chicago fire on the same day, but you'd think that some mention of this fire would have come up at some point. So, I'm grateful that I now know about it!
the stories are so sad...I barely scratched the surface. Love your podcast btw!!
@@midwestghosttown I agree that the stories are sad. And that well incident you talk about (where 5 of the survived) is pretty harrowing to think about! P.S. Thank you!
Thank you for saying the name of the town correctly. It's a sad occurrence and so much baloney being spread as fact. Being a native NE Wisconsinite I've always been fascinated by the Peshtigo disaster.
@@dianemauer4453 I want to visit the museum someday - there are more stories tied to the fire. Legend has it that the fire "jumped" the bay - but in reality it just caught fire on both sides. The winds simply intensified the fire! Sad accounts! Thank you for taking time to comment.
I don't want to nitpick but the Peshtigo WI fire happened on the evening of October 8, 1871. It took about an hour for the entire town of Peshtigo to be completely burned. The next day, October 9, the long prayed for rains finally came.😊
I love that you nitpick - I wouldn't have it any other way - I think it brings up an interesting discussion on the timeline of the fire. - I should have said October 8th AND 9th - because indeed it went into both days like you mentioned. Mark Wyman wrote an interesting article about it in the Wisconsin Historical Society page - entitled The Wisconsin Frontier (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998) - and Mark describes "On the night of Oct. 8-9, 1871, this fire destroyed in two hours a swath of forest 10 miles wide and 40 miles long and obliterated the towns of Peshtigo and Brussels, killing about 1,500 people." -- So on that night - it burned into the next day. I should have said both dates on that - nice catch Diane! I had to go back and listen to make sure and I only mentioned the 9th. I'll post that link below - because I felt it was an excellent piece found on their site - www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Article/CS1750
@@midwestghosttown Thanks for not getting angry because I pointed out an error. You'd be surprised how many people get mad when their errors are pointed out. I'll have to read the article you mentioned. Sounds interesting. I don't know how you feel about ppl insisting that victims were boiled alive in wells. I definitely doubt it. Why didn't those who went into the shallows of the Peshtigo River boil to death. Water temperature was estimated to be around 40 degrees.
Another thing, how could the fire have "jumped" the bay and started Door County ablaze? The fire would have had to go backwards into the towns of Ft. Howard and Green Bay and start about an hour later to burn at the same time.
As you've probably guessed the Peshtigo disaster of 1871 is one of my "favorite historical disasters", along with the Minnesota wildfires, thumb of Michigan fires, Iroquois Theatre fire (Chicago), Our Lady of Angels school fire (also Chicago), Hartford Connecticut circus fire, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, etc., etc . In the case of the building fires they all pretty much had the same set of circumstances that led to so many deaths. The all mighty dollar over shadowed human safety. So sad.
It was pure legend that it jumped the bay...that did not happen. It was extremely dry and WINDY that day, and fires were literally breaking out everywhere in the upper midwest. The fire spread rapidly - such a devastating fire! Thanks for listening and adding to the discussion on the topic!
The Fire Museum contains some relics from the fire. Recently they found a petrified blackened Bible opened to Psalms. The lack of relics proves just how violent the fire was.
The museum is open from Memorial day to October 8 and hours of operation are 9am to 4 pm. The real relics are in the adjacent cemetery. So many with the same day of death. I hope you are able to visit it someday. It's really enlightening as to the carelessness of the town's residents and that of the surrounding farms. Just thinking about it makes me want to tear up.😢
Sorry for the late reply on this - I have that museum as a bucket list item to visit one of these days. Thank you for commenting on this - story after story shared the violent nature of this fire storm - sometimes only finding a piece of melted metal in the aftermath to identify as a buckle from a belt - the body reduced to ash. Thank you Diane!
I hope you are able to visit the museum. Don't be too surprised if the volunteers manning the museum are on the rude side. They're for the most part retirees who really don't care
I found a book about the Sugar Bush settlements. It's titled Burning Bush and is a collection of remembrance s from survivor's families. Author is Alice Judy Behrend. I ordered it from the Peshtigo Times, Peshtigo WI 54157. I hope it's still in print.
It really irks me when people claim that everyone and everything in the Sugar Bush was destroyed. What about Abram Place and his family and farm. Guess he doesn't count since he married a Menominee girl.
I haven't been feeling very well the last month. Was to the doctor today. She's running a COVID test and a flu test. Yuck. This past spring I had a stroke which messed up my recent memories. I have to write down everything I need from the grocery and in general everything that might be important. It sucks. Hope you have Happy Holidays.
@@dianemauer4453 Happy Holidays Diane...I hope you start feeling better! And THANK YOU for the book reference. This is why I love comments on here. What if I get something wrong in my research? The beautiful thing is the community can come in and share something they know or to correct or add. Appreciate you - get well!
You forgot Menekaunee, a "suburb" of Marinette. There are more towns destroyed but I'm not remembering them.
There were more towns for sure!! I had a call into the museum about it, but they never got back to me. I wanted to talk more about Sugar Bush as well, but not alot of information. The stories are so sad...Thank you for stopping by and commenting.
@@midwestghosttown You're very welcome. I did research on the Peshtigo fire for a Wisconsin History class back in 1983 at UW-Oshkosh. It was fascinating. As time has gone on there's been more information being made available. I found the Sugar Bush settlements interesting especially the story of Abram Place and his Menominee wife.