narrative nonfiction/history the -...

4 s t o r y w o r k s

Narrative Nonfiction/History

By Lauren Tarshis

The

Main idea and supporting details As you read, look for details that explain what made the Peshtigo Fire so devastating.

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By the end of the night, the town of Peshtigo, wisconsin, would be burned to ashes. As many as 2,500 people would be dead. But on that sunday

morning, october 8, 1871, 7-year-old John kramer had no idea that he would soon face the deadliest fire in U.s. history. It had been a tough but exciting year for the kramers: John; his parents, Joseph and katherine; and his 9-year-old brother, Mike. they had come to the U.s. from

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The forgotten story of the Great Peshtigo fire, 1871

Germany in the 1860s. they had lived in upstate New york. then, in 1870, they had moved to wisconsin. thousands of new immigrants made the same westward trip in the 1860s. they were lured by the cheap farmland. they wanted to carve a new life out of the American wilderness. And what a wilderness it was!

In the 1860s, most of wisconsin was covered with forests. Billions of trees covered thousands of square miles of land. these were the forests of fairy tales,

with towering trees, howling wolves, and sharp-clawed bears. one early wisconsin settler was Laura Ingalls wilder, who wrote the Little House series. she was born in a north-woods cabin three years before the kramers arrived in the area. “the great, dark trees of the Big woods stood all around the house,” she wrote. “And beyond them were other trees, and beyond them were more trees. As far as a man

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could go to the north in a day, or a week, or a whole month, there was nothing but woods.”

Laura wasn’t kidding.

The forest that stretched across northern Wisconsin and into Minnesota was like no other on Earth. For centuries, it was mostly undisturbed by humans. The only sounds that could be heard there were the chirps of birds, the growls of wild animals, and the whisper of leaves rustling in the wind.

By the time the Kramers arrived, though, big changes were happening in the woods. Chop, Chop, Chop

American cities were booming, especially Chicago, 250 miles south of Peshtigo. Just 40 years earlier, Chicago was a small town on a marsh. By 1871, it was the fastest-growing city in the world. Every day, new buildings were rising up—mansions and shops, warehouses and department stores. Builders needed a lot of wood for all this construction. They found it in northern Wisconsin.

Beginning in the 1860s, lumber companies bought up huge chunks of the northern woods. They sent armies of lumberjacks to chop down trees. The trees were then stripped of their branches, dragged by oxcart across the forest, and dumped into the Peshtigo River. The river carried the huge logs downstream to Peshtigo’s sawmill. There they were turned into lumber for building.

By 1870, the forest around Peshtigo rang with the curses and shouts of lumberjacks, the chop, chop, chop of axes, and the crashes of

150-foot-tall trees hitting the ground. When a section of land had no more trees, it was sold to farmers like John’s parents.

The Kramers felt at home in Wisconsin. They met other German immigrants. Within a year, they had built a house. The boys were thriving. Things looked hopeful.

Then came the fire.

A Choking fogFires were a fact of life in the northern

woods. Some fires were sparked by lightning. But most were set on purpose. Lumberjacks burned the branches they hacked off the trees. Farmers used fire to clear their land of tree stumps and brush. At times, so many fires were burning that a choking fog of smoke hung over Peshtigo.

The early fall of 1871 had been a particularly bad time for fires. Little rain had fallen during the summer. The whole Midwest of the U.S. was parched. Creeks had dried up. Trees had withered. On September 24, a series of fires began to burn out of control in and around Peshtigo. The blazes burned hundreds of acres of forestland. They destroyed homes and shops. The town’s biggest factory caught fire. Hundreds of men fought the flames with buckets of water from the river. They saved the building. But dozens

of men were hurt. That fire cast a spell of fear over Peshtigo.

Some people packed up and left the area for good. But few families had enough money to abandon their land and start again someplace new. All they could do was try to prepare. A town priest, Father Peter Pernin, buried the church’s precious bowls and cups in the ground. Farmers kept soaking-wet blankets in their barns to protect their animals from airborne sparks. The Kramers cleared their land of every speck of dried brush and wood.

But there was no way to prepare for the horror that was to come.

A Blood-red Sky

October 8 dawned extremely hot. The sky glowed orange from the many small fires smoldering in the woods. John’s parents could see flames lapping at the edge of the forest. They sensed disaster was coming. They wanted to save their home. And they wanted to keep the boys safe.

There was a 40-acre field on a neighbor’s farm. It was freshly plowed. It had no trees or brush that could burn. Mrs. Kramer told the boys to go to the middle of the field and wait there until she or their father fetched them. Doom must have filled John’s heart as he and Mike headed toward the field. Would they ever see their parents again?

As the day wore on, the smoke thickened. The sky turned blood-red. Strong winds swept into the region. Many hoped that rain was on the way, and that soon the risk of fire would pass.


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Above left: A forest in northern Minnesota is one of the few places left on Earth that looks

like the forest that surrounded Peshtigo at the time of the fire. Above: Lumberjacks risk their

lives trying to untangle a logjam. Below: A Wisconsin frontier family.

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But there would be no rain that night, only strong, swirling winds. Whipped up by the wind, the small fires in the forest grew bigger. Finally, they all joined together into one monstrous inferno. Flames towered hundreds of feet into the sky. Trees exploded from the extreme heat. Flaming hunks of

wood flew across the forest, setting fires miles away.

Around 10:00 p.m., the people of Peshtigo heard an earsplitting roar. Father Pernin compared it to the sound of a speeding freight train.

In fact, it was the sound of the fire erupting

Storyworks history The Great Chicago fire

Two historic fires happened on the same night


went by before the world learned of the Peshtigo Fire, which was far more devastating. Peshtigo’s telegraph and railroads had been destroyed. The town was cut off from the outside world. Survivors, many with severe injuries, suffered for days before news of the fire reached Madison, Wisconsin’s capital. With the governor away, his wife, Frances, arranged a rescue mission.

As time passed, the Peshtigo Fire was largely forgotten. But the Chicago Fire is still seen as a major event in U.S. history. ■

The Peshtigo Fire happened on the same night as the most famous fire in U.S. history: the Great

Chicago Fire. That night, strong winds and dry weather caused roughly 3.5 square miles of Chicago to burn. The whole downtown—including 18,000 buildings—was destroyed. About 300 people died.

Chicago’s fire made news around the world. Aid poured in from nearby

states. Even Wisconsin’s governor, Lucius Fairchild, rushed to Chicago to help with relief efforts.

Meanwhile, days

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Few people today have heard of the Peshtigo Fire. Write a speech to deliver at a History Day competition, explaining what made the fire so devastating and why it has been forgotten. Send it to “Peshtigo Contest” by February 15, 2015. Ten winners will each receive a copy of The Great Peshtigo Fire by Scott Knickelbine. See page 2 for details.

WrITE TO WIN

fINd AN ACTIvITy ONLINE!


out of the forest, a blaze of incredible size, power, and heat. It was no longer simply a fire, but a firestorm. These rare fires happen when there are strong winds and large amounts of flammable material—like trees—to feed the flames. Firestorms burn far hotter than regular fires. They create their own swirling winds and explosive gases.

For most people nearby, the sound of the fire blasting out of the forest was the last sound they would ever hear.

Sheets of flameJohn’s parents fled their home just before

the explosion. They knew their house would be destroyed. Now they just wanted to find the boys. When they left, they took a mattress stuffed with feathers. They walked toward the field where they had sent the boys.

But they did not reach the field. The wall of fire was thousands of feet

wide. It rose high into the sky. It moved faster than the most modern trains of 1871. Escape was impossible.

All seemed hopeless for John’s parents. Then they saw a well dug deep into the ground. They soaked their mattress with water from the well. Then they climbed into the well. They covered themselves with the mattress.

As the Kramers hid inside the well, a scene of horror unfolded all around Peshtigo. The heat and the flames killed hundreds of people instantly. Others died trying to flee to the river. The Kramers could hear the fire

roaring above them. They did not expect to survive the night.

Neither did their sons. The boys huddled together in the field. They buried their faces in the dirt to protect themselves from the intense heat.

The fire raged for hours. It leveled Peshtigo and 16 nearby towns. By the morning, more than a billion trees were gone. An area twice the size of Rhode Island was a sea of charred trees and ash.

No one knows how many people died. It was likely between 1,000 and 2,500.

The Most deadly fireBut amazingly, all of the Kramers

survived. John and Mike staggered out of the field,

their eyes red from the thick smoke, their clothes covered with ash. Their parents climbed out of the well, shivering and in shock but not burned.

As John would say later, the joy of their reunion helped the Kramers through the hard months ahead. Their town was gone. Most of their friends were too. Many survivors left town, hoping to put the awful memories behind them.

But the Kramers stayed to help rebuild. Later, John married. He had six children. He was still living in Peshtigo when he died at the age of 81, surrounded by his family.

History has largely forgotten the Great Peshtigo Fire. But John’s grandchildren know that their grandfather survived the most deadly fire in U.S. history.

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