A PASSENGER TRAIN MISSING.
Fears that It Has Been Caught in the Fires and Destroyed.
MORA, Minn., Sept. 2.—One hundred and forty-three bodies have been taken out of Hinckley and places in the vicinity. The near-by town of Pokegama is wiped out.
The Eastern Minnesota Train, which left St. Paul at 1:05 o’clock yesterday afternoon and arrived at Hinckley at 6 o’clock last night, took 300 People on board, and moved westward, toward St. Cloud. The train has not been heard of since. It has not reached St. Cloud, and has not gone back to Hinckley. There is a general fear that it has been burned with all on board. There is no chance that they are alive, unless they have found a stream or slough into which they could go and escape the fire.
Every family in Pokegama is homeless and in danger of starving to death. A freight train is in the ditch one and a half miles west of Pokegama. Twenty-five people are in the caboose, and the fire is all around them. If they are not rescued soon all must perish.
Hans Nelson, section foreman at Pokegama, started away yesterday afternoon with his family on a handcar to escape the fire, and nothing has since been seen or heard of them. It is certain they have perished.
ST. CLOUD, Minn., Sept 2.—The first report of the terrible loss of life at Hinckley was received here early this morning from Pine City. A message at the Great Northern officials here said that Hinckley had been burned, one Great Northern roundhouse being the only building left, and that thirty lives had been lost. At noon a second telegram placed the dead at nearly 200, and word was also received to be prepared to render assistance.
The Great Northern is doing all in its power to reach the fire-stricken town. Ever since yesterday afternoon work trains have been engaged in rebuilding burned bridges, and all the men that can be used are being rushed to the front. Three large bridges are down. At 6 o’clock the road was clear to a point four miles west of Mora and within about fifteen miles of Hinckley, but the officials do not expect to get into Hinckley until to-morrow. It is thought here that the town will be reached more quickly from Pine City.
The scenes at the front, where the work trains are engaged, are frightful. One crew reported that they saw flames sweeping down on a house close to the track. The place was enveloped in fire before the people could escape. The workmen were powerless to render any assistance, although they were so close that they could hear the people screaming as they were being cremated. Newspaper men are trying to reach Hinckley over the Great Northern from here, but it is not thought that they will get there before to-morrow. All telegraphic communication is shut off. The Eastern Minnesota train, which came here from Princeton last evening, is still in the Great Northern Yards, the company keeping the passengers at the hotel. They will not get away before to-morrow.
WORK OF THE RELIEF TRAINS.
Bodies of the Victims Found Scattered All Along the Tracks.
DULUTH, Minn., Sept 2.—The relief train which was sent from here last night on the St. Paul and Duluth Road to suecor and save the victims of the forest conflagrations between this city and what was the town of Hinckley returned at 12:30 o’clock this afternoon. The party counted the charred and half-burned bodies of seventy-five dead people along the railroad tracks. The doctors who accompanied the relief party estimated the total number of dead to be from 400 to 500. The refugees from Sandstone, another town which was wiped out of existence, caught the relief train at Rutledge. On their way across the country they counted the bodies of sixty victims of the devastating fires.
Other towns which fell a prey to the devouring flames were Sandstone Junction, Mission Creek, Cromwell, Shell Lake, Miller, and Baronette. The fire-swept region which suffered the worst is embraced in the Minnesota Counties of Pine and Kennebec and Burnet County, Wis. The ill-fated “limited” train which passed through such a fiery ordeal at Hinckley, and during the flying retreat to Skunk Lake, arrived here at 9 o’clock to-night, bearing 600 refugees, many of whom were suffering from the effects of their experience.
Another relief train left this city for the blackened waste at 5 o’clock this morning. The two trains returned to this city bearing 500 living victims of the fires. They were housed in empty buildings and fed by the citizens. Another relief train was sent out on the Eastern Minnesota Road, and brought in several hundred survivors.
WISCONSIN TOWNS SWEPT AWAY.
Five Families Thought to Have Perished in the Flames.
CUMBERLAND, Wis., Sept. 2.—Baronnette, with 500 population, eight miles north of this city, and Granite Lake, a small town four miles north of here, were completely wiped out of existence last night. The people barely escaped with their lives, and have been brought to this city.
Five families are still missing, and it is thought that they may have perished in the flames. Great excitement prevails here. Fifty million feet of lumber was burned at Baronette, and 5,000,000 feet at Granite Lake. The fire is raging violently over a territory of ten miles square southeast of this city, and hundreds of farmers are homeless, barely escaping with their lives.
The damage is impossible to estimate at this hour. The wind is blowing a gale, and there is great apprehension, with fire completely surrounding the city.
CHIPPEWA FALLS, Wis., Sept. 2.—Forest fires have completely devastated the country between this city and Superior, a distance of 140 miles. Telegraph wires are down and the railroad tracks destroyed, making it impossible to secure accurate information from the scent of destruction. From what meager reports have been received, however, it is believed that the loss of life in this district cannot be less than 100 dead.
RAILROAD TRAFFIC DELAYED.
Bridges Burned in All Directions—A Freight Wreck Caused by the Fires.
MARQUETTE, Mich., Sept. 2.—Telegraphic communication has been re-established as far west as Marengo Junction of the Wisconsin Central and Duluth, South Shore, and Atlantic Railway. A trestle 8,000 feet long at Marengo was wholly destroyed, but trains from here to Duluth are ordered via Ashland. Two bridges at Bibon station on the Duluth Road were burned.
The Wisconsin Central has lost three bridges south of Marengo, but the railroad officials are as yet unable to state the approximate damage to railroad property. The trestle at Marengo will not be rebuilt, the management of the Duluth Road having decided to make a new crossing at grade. Nothing is yet known of the whereabouts of Duluth Passenger No. 8, due here this morning, but Superintendent Ketcham expresses hope of locating it before midnight.
Specials from Nestoria and Ontonagon report the wreck of a freight train on the Milwaukee and Northern branch, twenty miles south of Ontonagon, near Port Station, yesterday noon. Engineer Fred Almquist was killed and Brakeman Stephen Orton’s leg was broken. The wreck was caused by forest fires, burning ties, and warping rails. Five carloads of logs were piled on top of the engine, and were soon a mass of flames, in which poor Almquist’s body was reduced to cinders.
The hamlet of South Rubicon, on the same road, was reported burned yesterday.Much apprehension exists here regarding the whereabouts of the passenger train which left Duluth yesterday afternoon and was due here at 4:45 A. M. to-day. Two hundred miles of its run is through the fireswept district, and it is feared that bridges have been burned beyond Ewen, both in front and behind the train, cutting off escape. The wires are working east of Ewen, and up to that point little has been damaged except timber.
FIGHTING TO SAVE THEIR CITY.
Another Wisconsin Town Almost Sure of Destruction.
CADOTT, Wis., Sept. 2.—This city is surrounded by forest fires, with a prospect that it will be destroyed before morning. The entire population has been fighting fire all day, and many are giving up in despair, and fleeing for their lives. A fire engine has reached here from Chippewa, and is doing good work, and with its help a portion of town may be saved.
EAU CLAIRE, Wis., Sept 2.—It is almost impossible to get news from the districts now being swept by forest fires in this vicinity. Telegraph wires are all down, and railroad bridges burned out. The whole county between Cartwright and Hauden is ablaze. Reports come of fresh fires breaking out hourly from the pineries of Eau Claire River. The Northwestern Lumber Company has already lost 50,000,000 feet of standing pine. Officers of the Baronette Lumber Company estimate their loss at $250,000.
