THE HINKLEY FIRE

 This Interesting piece is from the stories from the Hinkley fire survivors book

On Sunday, September,1,1894, we were surrounded by a haze of smoke, but we were so used to it that we thought nothing of it.  The trains, having no spark arresters, had started fires along the railroad tracks, and it was a common sight to see small fires along the tracks, and smoldering in the stumps and brush.  But on this particular day, the wind   began to rise and as the flames increased, and the smoke became more dense, people became alarmed. School was going to start the following Monday, and my brother who had been working during vacation in Lind strom's confectionary and ice cream store, came home at noon.  He reported that the men at the store had said: If this wind does not go down, the town will be gone before night.  So my mother took all valuable papers and out them on he person, as my father was at work in the mill.  Shortly after noon it began to look hopeless, my mother took my brother and I and went to St Paul and Duluth depot, intending to send us two children down to our pastor in Rush City, maybe thirty miles or more to south Hinkley.  While we were waiting in the depot for the train, that train never reached Hinkley, but had to turn back because of the fire.  This train picked up many refuges who ran north to meet the train, and it carried them to what was called Skunk Lake, a mud hole along the track a few miles north Hinkley.  The people were saved in the muddy water, but the train was on the spot.  While we were waiting in the depot for this train, the waiting room was jammed to open doors with people who were trying to get out of the town by train.  All of a sudden it was discovered that depot was on fire, and they all rushed to get out.  In the jam I was separated from my mother and brother.  The wind was so powerful it lifted me right off my feet and carried me along the blocks, and then I struggled along on my own power.  This came very near being my undoing, for along came a team dashing wild along the street, with about six water barrels in the box, undoubtedly from the mill.  They tore across the little bridge over the Grindstone River, along with my many people running, heading north.  I too headed north, when a gust of wind veered me around towards the Eastern Minnesota depot. Here my mother was on the look out for me, and what a relief when she saw me coming.  It was limited train time on the road, and this train reached Hinkley, but could go no further.  It went down to the freight yard and coupled on with a freight that had side tracked for the passenger.  The train now picked up all the box cars, and with one engine at the front and the other at the rear, pulled up to the depot to load on the people and take them lousy of the fire.  We were in a box car, and thankfully be there out of the way of the flames.  I think about four or five hundred escaped on this train.  We crossed the bridge over Kettle River at Sandstone, but before crossing the train men had a controversy as to weather they could cross safely.  The bridge was burning on it entire length, and it was thought better to try and save our passengers by crossing, rather then let them perish where they were.  We were taken safely across, and the saving of that train won a big reward from Jim Hill, the president of the road. We went through fire and smoke all the way to Duluth, but were thankful our lives were saved.  We had relatives in Duluth, and they looked us up and among the refugees.  We were told that at four o'clock that afternoon the lights in the streets and homes as well as business places had turned on, as it got dark as night, and this was eighty miles from Hinkley.  The ashes fell so thick in Duluth that they had to shovel them off the porches.  It was a horrible experience, but tow particularly pathetic incidents registered ineradicably on my mind.  One happened as we were leaving the town of Hinkley.  The millwright sounded his siren as a farewell note to us.  Seems I can still hear it.  We were told he refused to leave the mill, and went down with the flames.  The other incident: We had an up to the minute young man in the town who owned a beautiful ring horse.  As the train was pulling over the high bank of the railroad, he came  along and tried to reach up at us.  We all stretched our hands to grasp him and pull him on board , when the horse turned and went straight into the fire, which was along both sides of the track, with the young man on its back.  He was never seen agin.  Father lawyer, the catholic priest, was a real hero in this holocaust, along with many other men.  My father was working with some other men who were 36 fighting the fire, found shelter in the large galvanized round house of the eastern Minnesota.  My brother in law, who lived next door to us, reached home after uselessly fighting the fire.  He intended to change his clothes, but as he saw the fire surrounding him on all sides, he changed his mind.  Some coins dropped out of his pockets, but the fiend fire, did not give him to stop to even pick them up.  As he went by our house on his way to the gravel pit, pour dog, Nero, was lying on the porch, and he arose and went with him to the gravel pit and was saved.  so all of our family were saved, though at three different locations, and we didn't learn till days after who was saved and who was not.  At the gravel pit, there saved themselves by dousing each other with water, which was very shallow.  The partucliar thing about this gravel pit was that it had been dry for years, even in what was con sided wet seasons, but this summer there was plenty of water in it ], though it had been an exceptionally dry summer.  The hurricane that acme in on us that afternoon was what made the fire so destructive.  It came on so suddenly that few realized the peril they were in till fire was upon them.  My mother, after getting to the train, would not enter the box car but kept looking for me, and the she spied me and gathered me into the box car with the rest.  This box car had been used for shipping coal, and everyone got as black as drakies, from the wind blowing the coal dust around in the car when the door was open, as that was our only ventilation so we had keep it open.  The people of Duluth, friends relatives and strangers, were solid group of GOOD SMARITANS and they took us in the ministered unto us as the Bible says.  People can be sure wonderful at times like that.  That fire was an experience long to be remembered, and we are so hoopoe each anniversary to meet with the old friends and neighbors of long ago, at our re union meetings.