The Kinsley graphic. [volume] (Kinsley, Kan.) 1890-1940, 1891-05-15
A BURNING STATE.
Michigan Counties Suffer Terribly
From Forest Fires.
SCORES OF VILLAGES BURNED UP.
Railroads, Cars. Lumber and Buildings
Melt Before the DevOuring Element
PeopIs Flee and Many Supposed
to Hsys Psrished.

DErRo-r, Mich, May 13.-The five
upper townships in EewaygO county
have been a surging sea Of fire ever
since Sunday and it is believed that not
a single one of the small hamlets is left
Fields station, with its four sawmilis
and general store, is no more, and the
800 people who lived there Sunday are
to-day without a roof to cover their
heads.
Otis, or Dingman, as it is known to
the postal authorities. is but collec-
ton of smoking ruins with the 200 peO-
pie who called the place home standing
around in despair.
Park City, in Lincoln township, went
ont in fire and smoke yesterday morn
ing. Nothing is left of the cluster of
small houses that marked the place
Lilly station is hardly worth the
name of station, as only the small hotel
and smaller railroad station are left to
mark the town site. Freight cars
burned and logging trains melted away
into ashes on the tracks where they
stood awaiting their loads of lumber.
Some of the people who lived in Wal
l1erville before the fire struck that town
arrived at Ludington in a deplOrable
state. They had nothing to call their
own but the clothes they wore and were
exhausted from hard work in trying to
save their village. They say it is i'm
possible to tell how many of the in
1abitants escaped alive, but they fear
they fed for safety. The village had
800 inhabitants and no one knows
where more than half this number is at
present. The loss at that point will
reach $50, 900.
Some idea of the vastness of the fire
district can be obtained from the fact
that almost any two of the dozen coun-
.
the whole state of Rhode Island.
The Toledo, Ann Arbor & Michigan
railroad has had to abandon all at
tcmpts to run cars north of the Clare
county line. A freight train and crew
had a narrow escape from cremation
yesterday. The ties in many places
were so badly burned that the rails
spread when the train went over.
When near MOre's siding, one of the
rallied and the train crew were obliged
to abandon the rear part of the train
after working until the cars began to
smoke. Before they reached Farweu
there was another derailment and all
but three of the train of eighteen cars
were left to their fate. Three of the
train men were badly bliStered.
The wind has shifted and driven the
fire to the southwest and into Newaygo
and Oceanic counties.
West Troy, few miles west of Iona,
has been envirOned by fire since early
yesterday morning and is supposed to
be in ashes.
Reports from Cadillac, Wexford coun-
&y, state that all the inha bitants of the
villages in the county have been out
lighting fire for the past few days and
many of the smaller places are wiped
off the face of the earth.
Where Nirvana and Fremont on the
Flint, Pierre & Marquette road once
stood. there is nothing now but piles
of ashes.
The fire is sweeping through the
woods near Red Cloud. Eewaygo coun-
ty, while more than 100 miles away
across the state the little hamlet OF
Taft is in gulf of flame.
NIoutoon, in Wexford county, above
Cadillac, is cut off from communication
with the outside world.
A Cheboygan dispatch says that for
est fires are doing considerable damage
in the interior OF that section Much
property has been destroyed, including
barns, fences and standing timber. I'm
1ess rain comes soon the damage will
be great The city is wrapped in a
dense smoke, and the Mackinac straits
are so densely overhung with smoke as
to seriously impede the progress of all
boats.
On both sides of the Michigan Central
tracks from Maclzinaw City to Fred
-ericE station, small town in the south
-ern part of Cheboygan county, fire is
burning fercely and the smoke is so
dense that lamps must be lighted at 4
o'clock in the afternoon
The towns OF Indian river and
ROandO are much in danger, and last
might dozens of men were to be seen
fighting the fiery monster.
Repo from all parts OF the north
-ern half of the lower Peninsula show
the fires are still raging. The latest
news from Traverse City is to the effect
that the entire population is out fight
ing fire. Millions upon millions of logs
are burning all over the center of the
state.