Tuesday, 7/5

Have a great holiday weekend?

I myself did, taking care of all those things one wants to take care of during the 4^th (family, friends, soccer with Loraine, food, sunburned knees (and just my knees.  Seriously.), and lots of grumbling about idiots shooting off fireworks, among them). Now, I'm getting ready for a very busy rest of the week. So with that in mind, let's re-visit our favorite word of the past few years...re-purposing!

I have my Jim Koski ™ walking tour for the History Center tomorrow, and had to write a newspaper article about it last week. So here it is...an interesting story that does indeed have trains (the topic of the walk tomorrow) at the center of it.

Details about the tour itself tomorrow.

(jim@wmqt.com)

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A RAILYARD INFERNO

By Jim Koski

Marquette Regional History Center

Fire and railroads have a long and intertwined history in Marquette. The Great Fire of 1868 started in the downtown shops of the Marquette and Ontonagon Railroad, while 42 years later one of the biggest fires in the history of South Marquette also took place at a rail facility, in this case the Duluth, South Shore, and Atlantic shops in the South Rail Yards.

The evening of August 12^th, 1910, a DSS&A night watchman named Edward Carr was making his rounds around the facility when he noticed a bright light coming through the window of one of the car barns. He asked a fellow employee if anyone was working in it, and after being told “no” he went over to investigate.

It was then he discovered the building was on fire.

The barn which had caught on fire was an 80x100 foot structure made of wood and a tar covered roof. There was no one in the building, nor were any pieces of equipment turned on and operating, so how the fire started there remained a mystery. But by the time Carr was able to sound the alarm the blaze had shot through the roof of the barn, and a steam pipe has burst from the heat, pushing down one of the walls. The fire also began igniting barrels containing flammable materials, in the form of oil and other lubricants.

By then, both city and South Shore firefighters had arrived on the scene. Because the flames from the exploding oil drums were so intense the decision was made to just pull back and let the fire burn itself out, while using their equipment to try and protect several nearby buildings. Thankfully, they could let the fire, the flames of which were seen by residents downtown, burn itself out because at the time the South Rail Yards were several hundred yards away from the residential portions of nearby South Marquette.

Once the flames died down and railroad officials were able to get into the complex they discovered that not only was the car barn destroyed, but one train car sitting within it had been melted, as well. And perhaps more importantly, all kinds of specialized machinery, from one of a kind tools to large cranes, were gone, as well. Losses during the South Rail Yard fire were the equivalent to over 2 million dollars in 2022 currency.

Thankfully, no one was seriously hurt, either by the fire or the explosions, and the DSS&A was able to replace all the destroyed facility fairly quickly. The South Rail Yards were up & running rather quickly, and they served the Duluth, South Shore, and Atlantic—which later became part of both the Soo Line and Canadian National railways--until the late 1990s. The yards were then cleaned up and redeveloped, where we now know them as Founder's Landing.

The photo was taken at the DSS&A South Rail Yards the day after the fire (8/13/1910) and shows the destruction that occurred. Photo courtesy of the Marquette Regional History Center.