Smoke over the midwest is not a new phenomenon

Wildfire smoke caused hundreds of shipping disasters on Great Lakes, particularly in 1871

Smoke from Canadian wildfires has been an issue in the Midwest and Great Lakes region in each of the last two summers. However, it’s not a new phenomenon.

In past generations, smoke from forest fires choked entire regions and actually proved hazardous to shipping on the Great Lakes. One of the worst examples was 1871, when a massive drought sparked fires across the Upper Midwest and led to some of the nation’s greatest tragedies.

Today, progressives point to the environmental disasters of the fires in Canada, but 150 years ago, there was far less concern for ecology. There were also far fewer regulations, as measures to prevent greenhouse gases, carbon footprint, and air quality were still decades away.

In addition, environmental protections were not on the minds of most Americans, who did not understand the ramifications – and did not care. For Americans of generations past, basic survival was still a primary concern, while business owners were more concerned with the bottom line than any notion of future ecological ruin.

On the Great Lakes, ship captains had few of the amenities of today, such as radar and electronic contact. Many wooden ships were still afloat, and firefighting equipment was rudimentary.

For ship masters of long-ago times, wildfire smoke on the Lakes was just one more hazard to deal with, and they were certainly used to it. In his 1960 classic Shipwrecks and Survivals, journalist and newsman William Ratigan writes that “for two generations the smoke of great forest disasters was a unique and dreaded peril on the Lakes.”

In colorful prose, Ratigan adds that “in the red, acrid fog haze ships … lost their bearings, went aground, rammed each other, caught fire, and burned like haystacks.”

Those ships that did survive came back with scars. Ratigan writes that old-timers “remember the haze of forest-fire smoke on the Lakes as vividly as they recall the smothering Lake fogs of spring and late autumn. They have told of sails blackened by smoke and riddled with burnt holes by cinders hurled by the wind.”

The shipping season of 1871 was particularly severe, as the Upper Midwest was hammered by one of the more severe droughts in American history. Less than half the normal rain fell between July and September, causing an outbreak of wildfires.

Ratigan writes that “dense smoke hovered over the Lakes like a pall,” causing extreme danger for ships. There were a mind-numbing 1,167 shipwrecks on the Great Lakes in 1871.

The severity of 1871 resulted in deadly tragedy that fall, particularly in Chicago. Coupled with persistent winds, the dryness, in the words of one observer, turned “all the wood in wooden Chicago into tinder.” 

In a time before sophisticated fire protection, Chicago’s 334,000 residents had little to fall back on, as there were only 185 firefighters and 17 horse-drawn engines in the city.

On Oct. 7, 1871, a massive blaze leveled four blocks south of the Chicago business district, which required 17 hours to extinguish. That simply set the stage for the next evening, when the epic Chicago Fire ripped through the city, leaving 100,000 people homeless.

The inferno left a property loss of $190 million  in today’s dollars. Nearly all of the city’s hotels, banks, and department stores were lost, as well as the many of Chicago’s lumberyards, the Illinois Central Railroad facilities and the famed McCormick Reaper Factory. The reported death totals of 300 were likely an understated number.

And that may not have been the worst fire that day. To the north on Oct. 8, an incinerating blaze ripped through Peshtigo, a northeastern Wisconsin lumber town dominated by former Chicago mayor William Ogden.

An estimated 1,100 residents were killed in Peshtigo, the deadliest fire disaster in American history.  Destructive, and deadly, fires were also reported across Michigan, especially in the communities of Holland, Port Huron, and Manistee.

It was a bitter postscript on the year of 1871, a time when the smoke hung over the Midwest even worse than today.

Tom Emery is a freelance writer and historical researcher from Carlinville, Ill. He may be reached at (217) 710-8392 or ilcivilwar@yahoo.com.