The Story of the Hinckley Fire
Once the Saint Paul and Duluth was completed in 1870, people could easily access the vast white pine forests in the area around Hinckley. Rapid harvesting of the Minnesota pine forests began, leaving stumps, fallen branches, and other unusable parts in the forest after the bulk of the trees were taken to a sawmill. The dead wood, as well as the living white pines, were dried out during the hot summer and drought of 1894 when only two inches of rain fell between May and September and daytime temperatures were consistently into the 90s (Millet, Larry. “The Day the Air Caught Fire.” Saint Paul Pioneer Press August 28, 1994: A1+.). All summer, cinders from passing steam locomotives ignited small forest fires in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan that caused smoke to linger over Hinckleyand disrupted navigation on the Great Lakes (Swenson, Grace. From the Ashes. Stillwater, MN.: Croixside Press, 1979. 3). Residents of Hinckley were concerned about the safety of their town—it was built entirely of wood, was surrounded by white pine forests, and contained a lumber mill—but were used to the presence of small forest fires. Reassuring the public, the Enterprise wrote on June 25, 1894 that the Brennan Lumberyard had a “most thorough system of waterworks in their plant.… Water mains and hydrants, with hoses constantly attached, are placed in all parts of the yards. Under ordinary circumstances it would be impossible for fire to gain any control or headway anywhere in the yards…. The fire king would most surely meet defeat from the Brennan Lumber Company” (Swenson, 9).
At three in the afternoon on Saturday, September 1, 1894, two fires that had started south of Hinckley combined near the town to form a massive firestorm. Firestorms, a technical term for what many describe as “walls of flames,” have central convection columns rising up to 30,000 feet and consume massive amounts of oxygen. Rod Sando, a former Minnesota Department of Natural Resources commissioner and forester, told the Saint Paul Pioneer Press “The amount of energy released by a firestorm is enormous.… It’s like several Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs going off.… There’s very little oxygen available and the low areas tend to fill up with carbon-enriched gasses. That’s why so many people suffocated” (Larry Millett. “The Day the Air Caught Fire.” Saint Paul Pioneer Press August 24, 1994: A1+.). In all, the massive 1894 Hinckley fire burned 307,200 acres and officially killed 418, though the actual number of victims is probably higher (Hardman, Saint Paul Pioneer Press.).
The Hinckley fire occurred when the railroad era was near its peak. News and information of the destruction spread across the country on telegraph lines that ran along railroad corridors and were operated by depot telegraph agents. Telegraphic communication allowed the New York Times to print a series of articles on the Hinckley fire starting on Monday, September 3, 1894. Rail access was so vital to the region that rail lines were among the first structures to be rebuilt after the fire: the Northern Pacific completed a first class depot in November 1894.
Many believed that the town could never again be as prosperous as it was before the fire because the pine forest, area’s primary resource, had been wiped out. The New York Times wrote on September 4, 1894 “There is little probability of Hinckley ever being rebuilt on its former prosperous proportions. The Brennan Lumber Company is not expected to rebuild its plant. Work had been crowded this season in the hope of cleaning up all the timber, and another season would have been the last. The company has but about 12,000,000 feet of timber remaining, which is so located that it can be sawed to better advantage at other points than by rebuilding here at a probable cost of from $50,000 to $75,000. The timber in the vicinity is well cut and burned off, and there is no chance of any other company coming in. Without an enterprise of this kind, there is no future for Hinckley, except as a junction point.” (“Burned in the Morass: Residents of Hinckley Struggled and Perished in the Swamp. New York Times September 4, 1894: 2).
Though the Northern Pacific built a new first class depot in Hinckley after the fire, indicating an expectation that the town would generate large amounts of traffic, Hinckley entered into a period of stagnation that lasted until the casino opened in 1992. While Hinckley was quickly rebuilt along the old grid street pattern, the railroad era town was never again as prosperous as it had been before the great fire struck in the afternoon of September 1, 1894.
Below, an image of Main Street after the fire.
National Attention to the Devastation Brought by the Hinckley Fire
The horrific Hinckley fire received national and international attention in newspapers. In addition to coverage by Minnesota papers, the New York Times and the Times of London printed many articles describing the death and destruction in Hinckley. Newspaper and wire service correspondents were able to file stories by telegraph and have them printed in the next day’s paper. Click here to read the 1894 New York Times coverage of the Hinckley fire.
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