In 1918, Minnesota and its residents were confronted with a series of devastating events that put communities to the test, forcing them to persevere through untold hardship. First, as the nation immersed itself in the global conflict later known as World War I, some 118,000 Minnesotans served in the war effort, both at home and "over there"-and citizens on the home front were subjected to loyalty tests and new depths of government surveillance. While more than 1,400 Minnesotans were killed on the battlefields, an additional 2,300 soldiers were struck down by another destructive force working its way across the globe in 1918: the influenza pandemic, which left more than 10,000 dead in Minnesota alone. Then, in mid-October, fires raged across 1,500 square miles in seven counties of northeastern Minnesota, leaving thousands homeless and hundreds dead. In Minnesota, 1918, journalist and author Curt Brown explores this monumental year through individual and community stories from all over the state, from residents of small towns up north obliterated by the fire, to government officials in metropolitan centers faced with the spread of a deadly and highly contagious disease, to soldiers returning home to all this from the "war to end all wars."

October 1918 brought dry weather and balmy skies that turned deadly for well over 500 men, women and children, residents of the Town of Herman in northeastern Minnesota, a rural farming community next to Duluth. 75-mph winds drove a raging inferno down upon unsuspecting victims creating a tragedy never before seen nor, thankfully, repeated. In this book, Hermantown native Connie Jacobson details the facts, figures and the too, too human stories of how those fires devastated Hermantown, Minnesota. As a compassionate journalist, Jacobson brings detailed research, accurate reporting and emotionally searing stories to the page, creating a comprehensive and deeply touching depiction of the havoc and ruin visited upon the close knit, defenseless victims and survivors.

In the fall of 1918, devastating forest fires swept across a major portion of northeastern Minnesota. Drawing on both published survivors' accounts and on trial testimony never publicized, the authors bring to light this saga of destruction, resurrection, and resilience in the face of adversity. The origins of the fires and the dramatic stories of the fire sufferers and their survival are featured in the early chapters. Subsequent chapters deal with relief operations and the controversial legal battles that followed among the victims, the U.S. Railroad Administration, and the U.S. Congress as the survivors struggled to obtain compensation for their losses.

An overview of the history of the great forest fires which swept over northern Minnesota in 1918.