place

Peshtigo Fire Cemetery

1871 establishments in WisconsinCemeteries established in the 1870sCemeteries on the National Register of Historic Places in WisconsinFirefighting memorialsNational Register of Historic Places in Marinette County, Wisconsin
Protected areas of Marinette County, Wisconsin
PeshtigoFireCemetery
PeshtigoFireCemetery

The Peshtigo Fire Cemetery is a cemetery in Peshtigo, Wisconsin. The cemetery is the burial location of the charred remains of victims of the Peshtigo Fire, of October 8, 1871, the deadliest natural fire in the history of the United States. Identified victims were buried in traditional marked graves, and over 300 unidentified victims were buried in a mass grave. The site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The memorial at the cemetery was the first official state historical marker authorized by the State Historic Society of Wisconsin. The cemetery is located adjacent to the Peshtigo Fire Museum, which is a memorial museum for the fire.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Peshtigo Fire Cemetery (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Peshtigo Fire Cemetery
North Peck Avenue,

Geographical coordinates (GPS) Address External links Nearby Places
placeShow on map

Wikipedia: Peshtigo Fire CemeteryContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 45.056352777778 ° E -87.754125 °
placeShow on map

Address

Peshtigo Fire Cemetery

North Peck Avenue
54157
Wisconsin, United States
mapOpen on Google Maps

linkWikiData (Q7171396)
linkOpenStreetMap (481237742)

PeshtigoFireCemetery
PeshtigoFireCemetery
Share experience

Nearby Places

Peshtigo fire
Peshtigo fire

The Peshtigo fire was a large forest fire on October 8, 1871, in northeastern Wisconsin, United States, including much of the southern half of the Door Peninsula and adjacent parts of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The largest community in the affected area was Peshtigo, Wisconsin, which had a population of approximately 1,700 residents. The fire burned about 1.2 million acres and is the deadliest wildfire in recorded history, with the number of deaths estimated between 1,500 and 2,500. Although the exact number of deaths is debated, mass graves, both those already exhumed and those still being discovered, in Peshtigo and the surrounding areas show that the death toll of the blaze was most likely greater than the 1889 Johnstown flood death toll of 2,200 people or more.Occurring on the same day as the more famous Great Chicago Fire, the Peshtigo fire has been largely forgotten, even though it killed five times as many people. "Everybody's heard about the Chicago fire, and that got all the publicity at the time," said a volunteer at the Peshtigo Fire Museum, named Ruth Wiltzius, whose great-grandfather perished while trying to escape. "Peshtigo was a backwards lumber town then—who had ever heard of it? Chicago was the big city. Which one was going to get more attention?"Nonetheless, several cities in Michigan, including Holland and Manistee (across Lake Michigan from Peshtigo) and Port Huron (at the southern end of Lake Huron), also had major fires on the same day. These fires, along with many other fires of the 19th century had the same basic causes: small fires coupled with unusually dry weather.