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When the Night Rained Fire:
October 8, 1871
Kewaunee County and the Great Fire
Copyright© 2021 Virginia Feld Johnson
Cover design: Sandy Dantzman
All rights reserved: No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means -
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise - without
prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief
quotations used in printed reviews.
Silverdale Press Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin
Manufactured in the U.S. and Printed by PublishersExpress Press
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021906383
ISBN: 978-1-7324751-3-7
Hell Rode the Hurricane
"Cities in ashes, towns swept out of sight,
Millions on millions destroyed in one night!
The eighth of October, for long years ahead ....... .
Remembered by men that mourn their dead ...... "
Marinette Eagle, 1871
Lower• • • Menekaune
Sugar Bush Peshtigo
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Oconto
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Pensaukuc W1lliamsonville 59
l.Jtue• DOOR G:J
Origin and
Suamico extent or fire
KEWAUNEE
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Green• •New Franken Firestorm
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This fire map comes from an original drawn by Green Bay Advocate editor
Frank Tilton. The verbiage lists the fire as October 8, 1891, when it really
occurred 20 years earlier in 1871. Williamsville is misplaced, shown here in
an area calledl Little Sturgeon when the hamlet was much closer to
Sturgeon Bay. Robinsonville is called Tobinsville on the map, which also
places Peshtigo in Illinois. The verbiage contains "surmising."
Table of Contents
I ntrod u cti on -------------------------------------------------------------1
Kewaunee County's Origins------------------------------------------3
Saw mi Il s-----------------------------------------------------------------15
Logging After the Fire ----------------------------------------------26
Agri cu It u re ------------------------------------------------------------33
187 1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------4 2
October 8, 1871------------------------------------------------------62
The Week After the Fire --------------------------------------------65
After the Fire ----------------------------------------------------------7 4
The Afterward-------------------------------------------------------100
Insurance: A License to Steal-----------------------------------106
Great Fire Survivor Stories --------------------------------------- 112
The Science ---------------------------------------------------------- 144
Factoids -------------------------------------------------------------- 147
Sources---------------------------------------------------------------155
The Night It Rained Fire:
Kewaunee County and the Great Fire of 1871
Introduction
In the decades leading to the 150111 anniversary of Great Fire, far more
about the origins, deaths and manner of death, and extent of the fire
have become well-known, however there are many who continue to
believe the "old wives tales" handed down over the years. With the
passage of time, other large area fires were "lumped in" to the Great Fire.
The weather patterns responsible for Wisconsin's greatest natural
disaster wrought havoc in other states. After 150 years, there remains
much to be learned.
Wikipedia says, "Occurring on the same day as the more famous Great
Chicago Fire, the Peshtigo fire has been largely forgotten, even though it
killed far more people. Several cities in Michigan, including Holland and
Manistee (across Lake Michigan from Peshtigo) and Port Huron (at the southern
end of Lake Huron), had major fires on the same day."
The Midwest was dry in 1870-71, and in northeast Wisconsin the slash
from ruthless destruction of the forests baked in the hot dry air for
months. It was the weather forming over the middle of the country that
created the winds aimed at Wisconsin on October 8, 1871. Massive
temperature changes created strong winds that fanned fires into
conflagrations, creating a wall of flame as much as 5 kilometers wide (or
a little over 3 miles) and 1 kilometer high. Firestorm at Peshtigo authors
Denise Gess and William Lutz discussed vitrification and the sand
transformed to glass, indicating that temperatures reached over 1,000
degrees.
In a 2020 interview, Peter Leschak, author of Ghosts of the Fireground,
told Minnesota Public Radio listeners that air temperatures during the
fire were "likely between 260-370 degrees C, or 500-698 F. To put that
into perspective, cookies generally bake from 350-400 degrees F while a
pizza is perfect at 400-425 degrees F. Leschak further says that
temperatures of 260-370 degrees Care hot enough to com bust hair.
The great fire was quenched by rain beginning the night of the fire,
October 8, and into the next day, and by the decreased in wind velocity.
Temperatures in the 80s on October 81h plummeted to 41 degrees after
the fire went through, leaving survivors to freeze in the elements. Some
survived the fire only to die of exposure within a few days. Survivors were
without food and water. Wells, rivers, and streams had mostly dried up,
however, where there was water, there were dead bodies. Water was
unfit to drink.
Long before the 1871 fire were the oft ignored early warnings about
lumbering and the destruction of Wisconsin's magnificent forests. Our
immigrating ancestors knew they had trees to last a lifetime, but what
they needed was food and the desire to grow prosperous. The thick
forests were in the way.
The year 1871 was one of fire in the northern mid-west, the eastern
states and in Canada. While this compilation touches southern Door and
eastern Brown Counties, its purpose is the largely unknown and untold
story of Kewaunee County in the Great Fire.
Readers will notice spelling changes, most notably in the words
Ahnepee/Ahnapee and Enterprize/ Enterprise. The place that became
Algoma in 1897 was first known as Wolf River, or a derivative of the
words. It was renamed Ahne pee in 1859, and then Ahnapee in 1873 when
it achieved village status. Kewaunee Enterprize began publication in
September 1859, and was renamed Kewaunee Enterprise in 1865.
Spellings of proper names in directly quoted articles were kept as written.
Spellings in all these instances reflect the documents and the era.
