THE HOLOCAUST IN MINNESOTA 



645 



be no abandoned souls in that town driven to madness 

 by the sight of a departing train. Eight thousand peo- 

 ple taken out of town in one short hour, and only seven 

 lost. Seven who were lost in the smoke or refused to 

 leave and never reached the tracks at all. It was a 

 wonderful record. 



Nor was the reception in Superior less wonderful. 

 Superior might well be proud. Twelve thousand refugees 

 welcomed, housed and fed in twelve hours. 



The few brave spirits who went back the next day to 

 learn the fate of the town must have stood in silent awe 

 of what they saw. Nothing ! Hardly a trace of the 

 thriving city that had hummed with normal life the day 



sniffed at each new comer, and disappointed trotted on to 

 try again. Hardly a sound in this ghost of a noisy city, 

 even the footsteps seemed to lose their sound in that 

 awful emptiness. Where row after row of lumber piles 

 had stood the ground was smooth and clean, swept bare 

 by that sixty-mile an hour wind. 



As though to display its power of wilful destruction, 

 the flames by strange caprice had skipped some spots as 

 though by a miracle. The public library with its heavy 

 walls of brick had faced the lumberyard. The last 

 vestige of the lumber piles was gone. The back portion 

 of the building was gone. Only some ten feet of the 

 front wall remained. And vet on the two ornamental 



Photograph by McKenzie, Duluth 



DESTRUCTION SWIFT AND COMPLETE 



This is the site of an inn, where many a merry party has foregathered. Now only blackened ruins and charred stumps remain to tell the story 



of flame and terror. 



before. Block after block there was not a thing in sight 

 above the foundation lines. Chimneys, framework, 

 everything gone. Mere blackened stubs where large 

 crowned trees had been. Brick buildings level with the 

 ground. And round, about, and through it all paved 

 streets and curbing. Indeed had it not been for these 

 paved streets with many a familiar crook and turn the 

 searcher could not have found his way about, so com- 

 pletely had the buildings disappeared. 



Here and there the wreck of an abandoned automobile 

 leaned drunkenly against the curb. A few stray dogs 



lamp posts on the front steps were to round glass globes 

 uncracked, while up and down the curb was spattered 

 lead which had melted from the insulated telephone 

 cables overhead. 



Far up on the hill where the fire had wiped away 

 whole blocks of houses as if by magic stood a lonely 

 house. Its neighbors on the four adjoining lots had 

 disappeared, only the charred foundations left. Not 

 a pane of glass was cracked, not a thing was burned. 

 Three houses on the eastern edge of town and four on 

 the west shared with it the glory of survival in that 



