Wayne Mahowald: Saw this a few years ago
"August 25, 1896: The Day Ontonagon Burned
The Upper Peninsula went through an awkward period around the turn of the century. The railroad had finally crisscrossed the entire U.P. This made transportation and access to the region’s natural resources much easier. It also helped deplete the main resource—timber—at an accelerated pace. Timber companies brought an economic boom and also the inevitable bust once the lumber was gone.
One such company was Diamond Match. It brought revival to Ontonagon after the area copper mines failed. Diamond Match exploited the area’s extensive White Pine, cutting logs, sending them down the Ontonagon River where they were cut and made into matches, shingles and boxes at two mills located in the village.
In the summer of 1896, Diamond’s mills were operating at full capacity. Wood was everywhere; stacks of lumber were said to be piled as high as three-story buildings. Sawdust, the waste of the log milling process, grew into huge mounds. Ontonagon was an enormous pile of kindling waiting to go up.
The summer of 1896 was dry, so dry that by summer’s end the wetlands were no longer wet. Small fires burned in area swamps and crept toward the town. On August 25th, the Ontonagon lighthouse keeper noted at about 1 p.m. that it was “hot and blowing a living gale.” Dry southwesterly winds kicked up ahead of strong low pressure to the northwest. The swamp fire outside of town roared in and set the towering piles of lumber and sawdust at the mills on fire. Once the “kindling” caught fire, the town was doomed.
Ontonagon was laid to waste in matter of a few hours. During the height of the holocaust, the town was ablaze in 100 places at once and nothing could save it. Three hundred and forty-four buildings burnt to the ground. Among them were four churches, a bank, three hotels, a dozen stores, thirteen saloons, two newspapers, the entire Diamond Match Company plant along with 40 million feet of lumber, as well as the barge City of Straits and two iron bridges. The village’s court house and jail were reduced to ashes along with nearly 300 residences.
In one afternoon, some 2,000 people became homeless. The St. Paul railroad gave free passes to any fire victim to any town the train served. Immediately, 400 residents took advantage of the offer and left the area. A number of victims spent the first night in the open air with their only possessions—the set of clothes they escaped in. Hundreds of others found temporary shelter in farmhouses or any structure still standing.
The Diamond Match mills were completely destroyed and the company chose not to rebuild. There was an extensive court battle between the town and the company over the pine logs still in the river. City officials devised a “tax” that the company would pay for every log that rolled down the river into the city. Diamond Match fought the tax, and after nine years of judicial wrangling, it was ordered to pay the tax on some 40 million board feet of timber. This was the only “aid” the village received from the company that once called Ontonagon its headquarters.
Today, sound forestry and fire-fighting practices limit the extent of devastating fires. It’s still possible that the right conditions can bring on a disaster like the Black River fire near Ishpeming in May 2009 and the Duck Lake Fire north of Newberry in 2012.
The main U.P. fire season is in spring before green-up. However, in a dry summer like the summer of 1896, a second wildfire season can occur. The Ontonagon fire burned the village as well as 228,000 acres in Ontonagon County. It is the fourth largest wildfire in Michigan history behind the great fire of October 1871 in the Upper and Lower Peninsula (and Peshtigo, WI); the thumb fire of September 1871 and the Metz fire of October 1908."
Karl Bohnak
.png)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
