A long time ago, in October of 1918 Minnesota was as dry as a tinder box and one terrible day the train that was running from the Cuyuna Range to Duluth filled with Coal and lumber sparked a fire that killed 453 people and 52,000 people lost their homes, businesses, farms and so much more. 38 communities and 250,000 acres destroyed. All in a days time. My mama read an article in our local paper about Lawler and wanted to go check it out. Just to see what the town was like now, how it survived or didn’t and what they had done with it since then. The fire was known as the Cloquet Moose Lake Fire of 1918. It was the worse natural disaster in Northern Minnesota’s history.
So today we went for a day trip and it was the perfect weather for it, Mama, Mike and I. Lawler is about 45 miles from home and our trip there was uneventful because we took the main route there. But once we were there it was amazing. No, the town never came back to life. We found some burnt buildings, boarded up ones and a few people that still live there. A lot is boarded off or fenced off but we were still able to get to some of it and also touch and feel a bit.
So without any more words, here’s part of what we saw.
The church and community center….
Feed store…
The bank. I love the the brick work…
The mercantile….
Lots of piles of building that were at one time…
The train depot. Just a tiny one room depot.
And last but not least the town sign and about the fire. If you click on any of the pictures they’ll get bigger for details and reading.
So there you have our day trip to Lawler. Interesting, a learning experience and so much more. Now for just a couple pictures of our trip home.
Thank you for joining me on our journey. We did have a great time and next time mama wants to go and do, I’ll be there with bells on ready to go and just see what else we can learn.
I hope you all had a great day. I’m off to bed. Take care my friends, blessings to you all!!
5 comments:
Fire is devastating. Beautiful fall colors. Thanks for sharing.
Ah! It's awesome that you guys went touring! I need a vaca. The fire story is sad. I'm wondering why they didn't rebuild and clean up. Here, the exploding population needs that kind of space- it would provide homes for so many.
That's so sad. :( It's amazing how much fire can destroy.
Yes, it did come back to life after the fire of 1918. It was thriving in the 1940's and '50s when I was a kid. There was no sign of a fire then. Over the ensuing decades, the town has died. No store now, no railroad going thru town, no school, no post office. Gone the way of a lot of small towns throughout the country. There used to be a lot of farms, not too many any more. Now acreage is used for deer hunting, including 80 acres owned by my family for over 100 yrs.
rockon wilson, thank you so much for leaving me a comment. Having visited Lawler and having Rhonda talking about it and now a visit from you, has made this visit there even better. Thank you for stopping by. Blessings!!!
P.S. I did look to see if you had an email address or blog but nope so hopefully you come back to see this comment. Thanks again.
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