Report of the Forest Commission. 45 



Hinckley, Minn., September 3. —A United Press reporter boarded the first 

 train out of Pine City for Hinckley at 7 o'clock this morning. It was a work 

 train, but carried many members of the different committees appointed at Pine 

 City last evening. As the train neared Mission Creek the first evidences of the 

 great fire became apparent. The whole country was blackened . The tele- 

 graph wires were down and the scene was one of desolation. 



At Mission Creek a small shanty was the only house left standiDg. The 

 depot buildings and the mill were a mass of smoking ruins. The train pro- 

 ceeded slowly three miles further to Hinckley. The roundhouse and coal sheds 

 of the Eastern Minnesota road only remained. West on this line was a long 

 line of smoking ruins of freight cars. 



At Hinckley the gaunt skeleton of the public school alone remained standing 

 in the center of the village itself. Alongside the railroad track were two score 

 of boxes filled with the bloated and disfigured remains of victims of the fire. 

 Some of the inscriptions of the coffins read as follows: 



11 Supposed remains of Mr. Blanchard, horribly distorted." 



" Girl 10 years old, no clothing." 



" Three children of Mrs. Martinson." 



In the next box lay Mrs. Martinson herself. Then came John Wendlund and 

 child and a number more unidentified. 



" If you want to see a pitiful sight," a resident of the village said, "go out 

 to the cemetery." The reporter picked his way through the deserted avenues 

 of the village, encountering the bursting remains of horses, cows, cats, chick- 

 ens and dogs. He overtook Hans Paulson, an employee in the Brennan mill. 

 "I am going out to the cemetery to see if I can find my wife and four chil- 

 dreen," he said; " I lost them all." 



The rain was pouring in sheets. At the cemetery, a mile and a half from 

 town, a half dozen men were digging a trench. A heap of bodies lay on a 

 knoll in the middle of the cemetery. There were 96 naked bodies, men, 

 women and children, scorched, blackened, distorted, bowels and brains pro- 

 truding, hands clutched in their final agonies, hair singed from heads, old, 

 young, middle aged, male and female, all in a promiscuous heap. 



In another corner of the cemetery were 45 more bodies covered with quilts. 

 All were interred late this afternoon. Hans Paulson, the man who had 

 accompanied the reporter, delved among the pile of bodies, five feet high, and 

 finally pulled out the remains of a little female child with only slight shreds of 

 white clothing remaining on her body. He scanned the face, examined the 

 clothing and then broke out in lamentations. 



He kept up the quest for the others in the driving storm. Among the ruins 

 of Hinckley a beautiful girl was making a vain search for her trunk. She was 

 dressed in a light-colored calico dress which some good Samaritan from Pine 

 City had given her. Her experience was a dramatic one. 



"My name is Mollie McNeill," she said, "and I have lived with my mother 

 and sister in Hinckley the past 16 years. I noticed the fire coming at 3 : 30 

 o'clock on Saturday afternoon and rushed out of the house and started up the 

 railroad tracks; on both sides and in front of me was a wall of fire and smoke. 

 How I ever got through I do not know, for people were falling on every side 

 of me. Twice my dress caught fire. 



