A TOWN WIPED OUT BY FIRE.

MENOMINEE, Mich., Dec. 22. - News has reached heare of the total destruction by fire of the town of Hermansville, 47 miles north of here, on the Chicago and Northwestern and the Soo Short Line Railroad. No particulars have been received. Hermansville is a lumbering settlement with a population of about 400, and as the weather is very cold, there must be great suffering among the people.

The New York Times, New York, NY 23 Dec 1888
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A WHOLE TOWN IN ASHES.

A MOST DISASTROUS FIRE AT HERMANSVILLE, MICH.

MENOMINEE, Mich., Dec. 23. - The town of Hermansville, in the Upper Peninsula, 47 miles north of here, has been entirely destroyed by fire. Hermansville is a lumbering settlement at the crossing of the Menominee Division of the Chicago and Northwstern and the Sault Ste. Marie Short Line Railroads. It is in Spaulding Township, Menominee County, and has a population of about 400.

The fire originated in one of the two large sawmills owned by the Wisconsin Land and Lumber Company, it is thought, by a match carelessly dropped by a workman. The sawdust and shavings quickly ignited, and the flames communicated to the sawed lumber which surrounded the mill. The town has no fire department, and the water supply was so small, owing to the streams being frozen up, that the bucket bridgade could do little toward checking the progress of the flames. Parties of men were put to work to remove the lumber piled and thus deprive the fire of material to feed on, but they were unable to accomplish the work in time, and the adjoining sawmill, together with an extensive planing mill, quickly caught fire.

It was then apparent that the remainder of the town was doomed, unless the wind should change, and every effort was devoted to saving the merchandise in the stores and the goods in the dwellings. The work was prosecuted with great vigor in the face of a bitterly cold northwest wind, laden with particles of snow, which rendered out-of-door work extremely difficult and exhausting. A great part of the personal property of the inhabitants was saved, however, and tents and rude shanties were constructed in the woods on the outskirts of the town for the accomodation of women and children, who suffered greatly from exposure to the cold. No lives were lost either by the fire or through exposure.

After the planing mill took fire the flames ate their way steadily down the east side of the single street of the village for a distance of 250 feet, and then, leaping across the intervening space, seized upon the Post Office on the opposite side, and in a few minutes the buildings on both sides of the street were burning. Fanned by the wind the progress of the flames was rapid, and within three hours from the time the fire originated the entire town was in ashes. A detailed list of losses and insurance cannot yet be furnished, but the total damage will approximate $250,000, the larger part of which will fall upon the Wisconsin Land and Lumber Company, which, besides the two saw mills and the planing mill, owned most of the other buildings in the town. The insurance is very light.

There will be great suffering among the people until substantial structures can be built for protection against the severe cold, and the work will be begun as soon as material can be obtained from other points, all the lumber at Hermansville having been destroyed.

The New York Times, New York, NY 24 Dec 1888
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Transcribed by Tim Taugher. Thanks, Tim!