Thomson Township’s Night of Terror:
The Great 1918 Fire
by C. Philip Johnson, Rodney Ikola and Davis Helberg,
Savage Press • ISBN: 978-1-937706-20-3 • $15.00 Softcover
This year marks the centennial of a year of sorrow in the area, mainly Cloquet, Hermantown, Thomson, Moose Lake, Kettle River and Esko. As people reeled from losing friends and family to the Spanish flu pandemic and to a world war, then came a devastating wildfire that took more than 450 lives (with some survivors dying from flu, picked up while confined in temporary refuges).
Some very local accounts are preserving the history of the fire. This book on Thomson Township parallels a chapter in Esko’s Corner, published in 2013 under Esko Historical Society auspices with the same authors.
This appealing compilation of stories about families, businesses, farms, individual survivors and relief efforts often taps first-hand narratives or “this is what grandma told me” and “this is from my father’s journal.” There is coverage, too, of evacuation at Nopeming Sanitorium, of restoration of the school system and travails dealing with the government, railroad and insurance companies. Each tale with its own intrinsic poignancy.
Even if your connection to the township and the Great Fire is tenuous, you’ll appreciate reading such an intimate description of how this Night of Terror affected our people and region.
Hellfire in Hermantown:
The 1918 Forest Fires and How They Affected Hermantown
by Connie Jacobson,
Savage Press • ISBN: 978-1-937706-18-0 • $14.95 Softcover
This very local account chronicles how the Cloquet Fire flattened much of western Carlton County north and west of Duluth, and created the worst number of casualties in a single day in Minnesota’s history: more than 400 deaths, 52,000 people injured or displaced and 250,000 acres burned. Each of 38 destroyed communities suffered a unique set of circumstances.
Connie grew up in Hermantown, graduating from high school in 1969 and earning college degrees at the University of Minnesota before her career in St. Louis County government. Her book emphasizes the fire’s affect on Hermantown with a story that had remained untold.
In a straightforward style, the book’s first section presents general information about the fire. Connie’s reporting becomes exceptional in the following sections, using the memoirs of survivors and the stories of victims to tell, vividly and faithfully, their history. Many tales are based on descendants’ accounts and newspaper reports, but Connie stirringly narrates her own family’s experience in one portion of the book, adding accounts of their neighbors and other residents.
This year, readers have plenty of choices, very local or statewide, to seek out a history of the Fires of 1918, but if you’d like a more local take, Hellfire in Hermantown is an excellent place to begin. And, as we believe Connie intended, if your roots are in Hermantown, some of this story will be yours as well
Sustaining Lake Superior:
An Extraordinary Lake in a Changing World
by Nancy Langston,
Yale University Press • ISBN: 978-0-300-21298-3 • $35.00 Hardcover
Our editor makes a valid point when she says “technically, all book reviews are written in the first person.” So I’ll begin by telling you I’m at an age that experienced much of this book as it was happening, such as the last days of the industrial forest, the postwar contamination of Lake Superior by cities and paper mills, the Reserve Mining conflict, the attempt to permit Gogebic Taconite.
Nancy’s clean, crisp byline journalism includes 40 pages of sources. Of course, as a professor of environmental history at Michigan Tech, she would have good files, and, as a member of the International Joint Commission, she had access to thousands of documents.
Though she disparages the
past and warns us of unresolved hazards, Nancy does shows hope
for a cleaner, more productive and balanced future picture of Lake Superior.
She’s betting on the Lake’s ecosystem resilience and the power of community advocacy. If you crave more than a superficial summary of the Lake’s threats and vulnerabilities, you’ll value this serious book for all that it reports and presages.
The books reviewed here, unless indicated, should be available through local booksellers by using the ISBN number. Find more regional reviews at www.LakeSuperior.com.