64 Report of the Forest Commission. 



enter his name. In this way it is hoped to find out just who is missing. Some 

 of the persons who saw the fire reach the lake say that they are sure that some 

 of the people who sought safety on the logs must have been overcome by the 

 heat and drowned in the lake. It is also said that seven persons who were in 

 a boat were caught under the railroad bridge north of here when it fell. 



Most of the people who were cared for at Prentice, Saturday and Sunday, 

 returned to Phillips yesterday. The sheeting which the Milwaukee relief train 

 brought up Sunday has been converted into tents, and about 1 ,200 persons 

 found shelter under them last night. The people are well protected so long as 

 the fair weather lasts, but a hard rain storm would cause great suffering. A 

 number of people are now sick from the exposure to the damp night air, the 

 use of poor water and insufficient clothing. A large quantity of medicine was 

 received from Milwaukee this morning, and the doctors have opened a dis- 

 pensary in a little shanty. 



Clouds of smoke from the forest fires, made doubly pungent and blinding 

 by mixture with a fog from the little lake, formed a pall for the ghastly ruins 

 of the once pretty and prosperous city of Phillips, Sunday morning, when 

 Governor Peck reached there with the relief train. The Governor, of course 

 did not say so then, but he afterward confessed that he had never before seen 

 such a cold and cheerless spectacle. On one sid* of the railroad track which 

 divided the city, one could get a dim view of the lake, in which three families 

 and perhaps others had lost their lives in trying to fly from the flames. On 

 the other side the smoke was so dense that a person could not even see an out- 

 line of the ashy heap which was all that remained of the business and resi- 

 dence portion of Phillips. 



All day long the boom of dynamite explosions could be heard. The dyna- 

 mite was being used by persons who were searching the lake for the bodies of 

 the dead. Four were found and were removed to the box car which had been 

 pressed into service as a morgue. The complete list of the dead will not be 

 known until everybody returns to Phillips, and a sort of census is taken. Sun- 

 day there were about 300 persons at the county fair buildings, about a mile 

 from the city. A thousand or more were being cared for at Prentice, and 

 scores of families fled to the towns north. The death list up to noon, Sunday, 

 included only the families which met death in the lake, and one person whose 

 body was found in front of where Postmaster Sackett's house stood. Several 

 persons claim that there was a large party on the bridge leading to the fair 

 grounds when it caught fire and fell into the river. It was also reported that 

 several children took refuge under the mill tramways. All that remains of 

 the tramways is twisted rails. 



Phillips, Wis., July 30. — A conservative estimate of the total loss places it 

 at about $750,000. Of this the John R. Davis Company is credited with a loss 

 of about $350,000. The loss on the Shaw tannery, located just north of the 

 city, will be about $200,000, and the losses on stores, residences, etc., will 

 reach $200,000. 



The loss of life occurred during the first fire. The families of Dave Bryden, 

 James Locke and Frank Cliss] made for a^floating boathouse and pushed it 

 out into the lake, thinking that the wind would drive the house to a place of 

 safety across the lake. Instead, the draft^created by "the terrible fire drew the 

 boathouse in toward the flames on shore. The families then got into the little 



