How many of you were taught about the great Wisconsin fire in history class? (Green Bay: construction, elementary school)

[linicx]

The great Peshtigo Conflagration killed so many peo0le and destroyed so many buildings so quickly, no on knows how mny prople acturally died.



Peshtigo Fire - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[susancruzs]

I grew up in Illinois so no. I knew about it because we always went up to the UP every summer where my mom was from and my folks talked about it.

In Chicago, I did a bus tour about the Chicago fire and they mentioned the Peshtigo fire during that tour because I believe they were around the same time.

[bluescreen73]

I remember learning Wisconsin history in elementary school. We learned all about Marquette & Joliet, Jean Nicolet, the Great Peshtigo Fire, and of course the La Follette family.

[Milwaukee City]

never heard of it before today.

[ranger17]

from what i remember you can still find charred remains in the northwoods ( stumps, etc ). And though the Chicago fire was at the same time, the Peshtigo one in many ways was far worse.

Just one of those things as a kid you may not have paid attn to, but as an adult is quite interesting

[JoshB]

We did hear about in Portage schools. I think time was around 6th grade history. Pretty interesting.

[Dea13]

From what I remember it was the same day as the Chicago fire which is why it didn't receive the attention it normally would have. I remember going to some fire museum in Peshtigo years ago, probably about 25 yrs ago actually. That was the first I heard about the fire. Never learned about it in school.

Dea

[wigirl920]

I've been to the Peshtigo Fire Museum as well and it's really quite interesting. I don't specifically recall learning about it in school but did learn about it when I was a kid. If you get up that way it's well worth the stop.

The Chicago and Peshtigo fires both happened at the same time. October-something of 1871 if I remember correctly (ETA: Oct 8, 1871 according to Wikipedia). With Chicago being a bigger city it gained a lot more attention than the fire in Peshtigo.

As noted in the Wikipedia article, one of the most interesting facts about that fire is that it actually skipped over the Bay of Green Bay and burned all the way to Lake Michigan in Algoma (Kewaunee County). Pretty much wiped out parts of Door County in the process.

If you take Hwy 57 up to Sturgeon Bay, there is a wayside on the left-hand side of the road (maybe 5-10 miles south of St Bay?) .... there had once been a little community there and when the fire came through, some residents went into a well to protect themselves. The well is still there and last I recall, there was a sign commemorating the incident and the community that once stood there.

With the highway reconstruction, though...I'm not sure if the wayside is still right off the road. It might be on the frontage road that was old Hwy 57.

Interesting stuff.

[susancruzs]

It is interesting and true because of the Chicago Fire, Peshtigo got less attention. The weather channel had a feature on the Chicago Fire and also mentions about Peshtigo, how that fire happened.

There is a great website The Great Peshtigo Fire of 1871 that has alot of interesting articles. The Peshtigo fire is the worst in US history.

[MidwesternBookWorm]

I grew up in Michigan and went to a school with, ah, "different" ideas on what should and shouldn't be taught to students, so I did not learn of the great Peshtigo fire until I was an adult.

I remember reading one article that speculated that possibly a meteor strike caused both the Chicago and the Peshtigo fires, since they happened on the same day and burned with such seemingly unnatural ferocity. I know there's the song about Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicking over a lantern and starting the Chicago fire, but the article's author felt that such fierce conflagrations must have been caused by super-heated meteoric debris rather than something as mundane as a lantern.