Today’s speaker was our own fellow Rotary Club of Minden Rotarian, Skip Pardee, who spoke about the 1871 Peshtigo, Wisconsin fire.

Peshtigo is about 250 miles north of Chicago. The fire there began on October 8, 1871, the same day as the infamous Chicago fire. Although the Peshtigo fire is less well known, it was far more devastating than its Chicago counterpart. In Chicago, about 3.3 square miles burned and roughly 300 people died. In Peshtigo, about 1,875 square miles burned and approximately 2,500 people died, making it the deadliest fire in US history.

Skip explained that his interest in the Peshtigo fire stems from his family’s roots in the area. His mother grew up in Marinette, Wisconsin, about 7 miles north of Peshtigo. During the Great Depression, she moved to Detroit to find work. Skip’s father also moved to Detroit from Boston in search of work. The two later met, married, and raised their children there, including Skip, who grew up in Detroit.

As a child in the 1950s and 60s, Skip traveled with his family to Marinette to visit relatives, including grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. They would drive from Detroit to Frankfort, Michigan, then take a car ferry, usually in the evening, and arrive in Marinette the following morning.

Skip’s late brother met a woman from Peshtigo, married her, and moved there, where he lived for the rest of his life. His brother’s son still lives in Peshtigo.

Skip last visited Peshtigo in 2021 and toured the Peshtigo Fire Museum. Before that visit, he knew little about the fire. He purchased a book about it, Firestorm at Peshtigo, and based his presentation on what he learned while reading it. The following is a summary of his talk.

The Area and Its History 

In the years leading up to the fire, the United States experienced a significant westward migration, with many people heading to Chicago.  This influx of people into Chicago fueled a major building boom that required vast amounts of resources, including lumber.  Much of that lumber came from the Peshtigo area.   

Peshtigo was part of a vast expanse of large virgin forest in northern Wisconsin.  This forest included hardwoods like maple, ash and birch as well as a pine (Pinus strobus).  These pine trees stood 120 to 170 feet tall, with trunk diameters of three to six feet.  There was an average of 360 trees per acre, or approximately 130,000 per square mile.  Just one tree could provide enough lumber to build a house. 

The pine’s structure was particularly desirable for lumber.  Its canopy didn’t start until about halfway up the trunk, providing a significant amount of clear-grain wood with few or no knots.  Clear-grain lumber was highly valued for making woodenware.   At the time, Peshtigo was home to the world’s  largest woodenware factory.

During this period a lot of immigration from countries such as Sweden, Germany, Norway, and Prussia was taking place.  Immigrants were attracted by the availability of jobs and access to land.  Land sold  for $1.25 an acre and land grants of 80 acres were available.

The logging industry was a major employer.  Loggers worked 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, earning $12 to $15 a month.  It was extremely dangerous work, with an average of one worker killed per day.   There was no safety net, such as workers’ compensation insurance.

In 1871, Peshtigo had no fire or police department.  There were approximately eight sawmills in the area, in addition with the world’s largest woodenware factory. Sawdust was everywhere with nowhere to dispose of it.

The Firestorm

During the summer and early fall of 1871, the area experienced two months without rain, accompanied by low humidity. Fires were already raging across the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and as far east as Michigan.

Smoke hung heavily over Peshtigo. Reports indicated that people could not see their neighbors’ houses across the street. Weather maps from the period showed strong winds extending from Wisconsin to Chicago. Meanwhile, the dried marshes just south of Peshtigo had been emitting methane gas for weeks. The gases, mixed with the smoke, reportedly created an eerie, radiant glow over the area.

A series of events ignited the fires on that fateful day, eventually burning 17 towns and approximately 1,875 square miles, including Peshtigo. But why is it known as the Peshtigo fire?

One theory from the book, discussed by Skip is that a tornado of F5 intensity struck Peshtigo that day, coinciding with the fire. The combination of the flames and extreme winds intensified the catastrophe far beyond what occurred in other towns.

Survivors described the storm as a persistent roar that never stopped and continued to grow louder. They reported seeing enormous brown and black balls hurtling through the air as if fired from a cannon. When one of these balls struck a building, the structure burst into flames. The extreme winds could then lift the building into the air, making it disappear in an instant. If a ball struck a person, the person could burst into flames and be consumed within seconds.

The winds were so intense that even foundations were reportedly lifted. The fire also generated extraordinary heat. Melting sand into glass requires temperatures exceeding 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and the sand around trees in Peshtigo was reportedly transformed into glass.

To escape the inferno, people plunged into the Peshtigo River. They would take a breath, submerge themselves for as long as possible, and then rise to the surface for another breath before diving underwater again.

The Aftermath
 

Although towns near Peshtigo also experienced fires that day, they did not suffer the same degree of devastation. One theory is that the tornado that intensified the flames was localized to Peshtigo, which would explain why the same level of destruction did not occur in neighboring communities.

Marinette, only a few miles away, lost just 14 buildings, and no deaths were reported there.

The day after the fire, a group from Marinette traveled to Peshtigo. Nearly every building in the town had been destroyed. They found bodies everywhere, sometimes reduced to piles of ash that had once been human beings. They could scarcely begin to count the dead infants and children scattered among the uprooted, smoldering trees. Some lay beside their dead mothers, while others had been thrown several feet away.

Later, burial parties arrived in Peshtigo and encountered scenes of unimaginable horror. In a cornfield just outside town, they found the bodies of 68 people huddled together, having sought refuge in the open field.

The dead were also found in root cellars, wells, the smoldering foundations of houses, fields, culverts, and gullies. Among the remains, they discovered a shapeless lump of metal: the church bell from the Catholic church.

An entire train loaded with lumber had seemingly disappeared, leaving only partially melted wheels and a burned engine to mark where it had once stood.

A Story of Faith and a Reported Miracle

Skip also shared a several stories from the book including one involving a woman named Adele Brise and the events surrounding the Peshtigo fire.

Brise was born in Belgium in 1831. From an early age, she dreamed of becoming a Catholic nun. In 1855, she immigrated to Champion, Wisconsin, in Door County, just a few miles across the bay from Peshtigo.

According to Catholic tradition, Brise experienced a series of visions of the Virgin Mary.  In October 1859, twelve years before the fire, Adele was walking through the woods when she saw a vision of a woman standing between two trees, surrounded by dazzling light and wearing a gold sash. The woman remained silent before disappearing.

A week later, as Adele was walking to Sunday Mass, she saw the same woman again. The apparition appeared and then disappeared.

After Mass that day, Adele told the priest what she had seen and explained that she did not know what to do. The priest advised her not to be afraid and instructed her to ask the woman who she was and what she wanted if the apparition appeared again.

On her way home from church that day, October 9, 1859, Adele encountered the dazzling woman once more. She asked, “Who are you, and what do you want of me?”

The woman replied, “I am the Queen of Heaven. Gather the children and teach them what they should know for salvation.”

Adele responded, “But how shall I teach them, for I know so little myself?”

The woman answered, “Go and fear nothing. I will help you.” 

Inspired by this experience, Adele eventually became a nun and devoted the rest of her life to teaching children about the faith. It was said that she would often walk 50 miles up and down the Door County Peninsula, in all kinds of weather, to teach them.

Several years before the fire, a chapel was built in Champion, and other buildings were subsequently constructed around it. A wooden fence enclosed the entire five-acre complex. 

On the night of the Peshtigo fire, Champion was also threatened by the flames. As the fire approached, frightened people from neighboring areas came running to the complex with their children, animals, and whatever belongings they could carry. 

The fire reached the area between eight and nine o’clock on the evening of October 8. Those gathered at the complex prayed, and sometime during the night, heavy rains arrived. 

The next morning, they surveyed the damage and found devastation everywhere around them. Yet the wooden fence surrounding the complex had burned on the outside but remained undamaged on the inside. Neither the chapel nor any of the buildings within the fence had been damaged. 

Today, the complex is known as the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion. Every year, thousands of people visit the shrine on October 8, the date of the Peshtigo fire.