October 12, 1918: The Cloquet Fire

October 12, 1918: The Cloquet Fire breaks out in northern Minnesota. It is the worst natural disaster in Minnesota history, and the 2nd-deadliest wildfire in American history, after the Peshtigo Fire in 1871.

It was really 50 or more fires that combined in a single incident. It had two major theaters, one called the Cloquet–Duluth Fire and the other the Moose Lake Fire.

The Cloquet-Duluth Fire began before noon on October 10 when a Great Northern Railroad locomotive ignited a small fire at Milepost 62 northwest of Cloquet. It smoldered for two days, then came alive when a cold front brought stiff winds and a steep drop in humidity.

At about 1:30 PM, this fire began to move and joined with others. It reached the Fond du Lac Ojibwe reservation around 7:15, and the city of Cloquet around 8:00. Winds had by then risen to 60 miles per hour or better.

The Moose Lake fire, at least 5 fires combined, started on October 4 along railroad tracks near Tamarack in Aitkin County. It stayed small till the increasing winds and falling humidity of October 12 whipped it up early that afternoon. It burned southeast toward the towns of Kettle River and Moose Lake, combining with other fires along the way.

As the fire neared Moose Lake around 7:30 that evening, relief trains rescued a few hundred people. Most who survived, however, did so by taking refuge in Moose Head Lake.

In total, 453 people are known to have died, and 52,000 people were injured or displaced. Thirty-eight communities were destroyed, with 250,000 acres burned, and $73 million in property damage. Over $13 million in federal aid was disbursed.

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October 12, 1918 was a Saturday. World War I was raging, though -- not that most people yet had any idea -- it was coming to an end. Two former major league baseball players died on this day, Alex Burr in combat in France, and Harry Glenn of pneumonia in a stateside Army hospital. I have separate entries for their deaths.

The War Department had ordered that the baseball season end a month early, in September, and that all players obey the "work or fight order": Enlist, or get a job in an industry essential to the war effort, or get an otherwise necessary job (like police or firemen), or be subject to the military draft. Hockey season hadn't started yet. Professional basketball barely existed.

And even college football was affected by the manpower drain of the war. That day, the following schools played military teams: The Universities of California, Chicago, Illinois, Minnesota and Texas; Lehigh University; and Texas A&M.

* Georgia Tech beat Furman, 118-0 at Grant Field in Atlanta. It had been 2 years and 5 days since Tech had beaten Cumberland College 222-0, college football's all-time biggest blowout.

* Ohio State beat Denison University, 34-0 at Ohio Field in Columbus. Before coaching Ohio State to glory, Woody Hayes would graduate from Denison in 1935.

* Michigan State beat Hillsdale College, 66-6 at College Field in East Lansing, Michigan. Hillsdale, of Hillsdale, Michigan, no longer fields sports teams.

* Iowa beat Coe College, 27-0 at Iowa Field in Iowa City. Coe is now an NCAA Division III school.

* And the Multnomah Athletic Club, a semi-pro team, beat the University of Oregon, 20-0 at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon.