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Since the first rail line was completed in Minnesota in 1862, the railroad has had a storied existence in the state. As Steve Johnson of the Hinckley Fire museum relates, fire is part of that story.
“The Hinckley Fire was 500 square miles that was totally incinerated in 4 hours,” said Johnson.
It was September 1, 1894. The stage was set by months of drought, by a temperature inversion, and in particular, by mile after mile of dry, woody slash left on the land by fifty years of white pine lumbering. Summer fires were common throughout those years. But this was different.
“A fire started along the tracks about five miles south of Hinckley, and eyewitnesses that survived the fire saw it: it was a train that started the fire,” said Johnson.