o-lo 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



great inferno. Two of the sawmills were there in tact, 

 the paper mill, the box factory and some of the lumber 

 piles. The town was gone. The leaves on the willows 

 in the park were green and unshriveled. Every house 

 around it was in dust and 

 the dust had blown away. 



A bunch of nickels in a 

 cash drawer had fused into 

 a solid lump. Two bicy- 

 cles lying where a shed had 

 been were welded into a 

 single tangled mass. Whole 

 sections of copper wire had 

 been burned away. The 

 grass in some of the yards 

 was unscorched. 



Never was there such 

 complete destruction of a 

 good sized modern town 

 accompanied by so little 

 loss of life. Three days 

 after the fire reconstruction 

 had commenced. So thankful were 

 own escape that scarcely a voice 



Photograph by McKenzic, Duluth 



INSPECTING THE RUINS 

 This was once a beautiful home near Duluth, 



Lakeview district. 



the people for their 

 was heard to bemoan 

 the loss of property, as complete and thorough as it well 

 could be. Such the astounding story of Cloquet, and pity 

 it is that others 

 could not have 

 been as fortu- 

 n a t e. The 

 death song of 

 Moose Lake 

 must be writ- 

 ten in another 

 minor key. 



The devil 

 dance was not 

 confined to the 

 St. Louis Val- 

 ley. A branch 

 of it shot 

 across the 

 swamps to the 

 southeast and 

 closed in on 

 the illstarred 

 town of Moose 

 Lake. They 

 laughed at 

 such warnings 

 as they had. 

 No relief trains 

 came to take 

 them out. The 

 blow was swift 

 and terrible. 

 It bathed a wide stretch of country in flame and literally 

 tore out the center of the town leaving a fringe of houses 

 along one edge. Destruction was swift and complete. 

 People were burned in the houses in the town, drowned 



Photograph by 



McKenzie, Duluth 



WRECKAGE 



in the lakes where they had taken refuge, smothered in 

 root cellars, overtaken on the roads and trapped in the 

 woods. One couple put their seven children in the root 

 cellar for safety while they went to get their stock. The 



fire cut them off from the 

 root cellar. Through some 

 miracle they themselves 

 escaped, but only to find 

 their seven little ones 

 smothered to death by the 

 smoke and gasses. The 

 loss of life on every side 

 was frightful. 



It is reported that 300 

 bodies have been found so 

 far and the search of the 

 back districts has but just 

 begun. Hundreds more 

 will be found and many a 

 silent spot in the forest will 

 keep its gruesome secret to 

 the end of time. 

 Still another branch of the devil dance left the St. 

 Louis valley to the Eastward and descended all un- 

 heralded on the far flung eastern suburbs of Duluth. A 

 night raid from the forest on a mighty city. Two hun- 

 dred deaths 

 tell the hor- 

 rible story. 



Between 

 these towns, 

 including a n 

 area of thirty 

 miles across, 

 lies desolation. 

 Many another 

 smaller town 

 felt the heavy 

 hand of the 

 forest fire, and 

 paid a heart- 

 breaking toll 

 of human lives. 

 Many a trage- 

 dy was played 

 that night in 

 isolated forest 

 homes far 

 from any help- 

 i n g hand. 

 Many an un- 

 selfish hero 

 died unknown 

 in vain at- 

 tempts to save 

 the ones he 

 loved. Many a little group of charred and blackened 

 bodies tells the sickening story of fleeing families over- 

 taken in helpless flight on those lonely forest trails. 

 It will be days before the list of dead, already soaring 



WHICH TELLS A GRUESOME STORY 



The unfortunate woman who lived in this house took refuge in the dugout root-house and was smothered 



to death by smoke and gasses. 



