THE NORTH SIDE FIRE OF 1936
By John Yngve

The following is an account of a phenomenal peat fire that burned on the north side of St. Louis Park for days and weeks, starting in 1936. John Yngve is a prominent attorney who grew up on the north side. This is a section of a memoir he wrote in 2001.

The times were tough.  The summers were dry. The hot dry summers reached a high in 1936 with five consecutive days in July of over 100 degrees.  It was so dry.  The news was of the droughts, the farm collapse, and the migrations from the dust bowls, the dust storms, and the hard times.

It was so hot, much the same as this year, but worse.  People slept outside in the parks.  Each day the radio and newspapers brought forth stories of how bad it was and how it might improve, but each day it got hotter and hotter and dryer and dryer and the rains did not come.  The farms dried up; the markets dried up; the dust bowl was pictured in the papers; eggs were pictured frying on the pavement in Minneapolis, and no relief came. 

Suddenly, south of Cedar lake Road, southeast of Eliot School, a grass fire started.  The wind blew, the fire spread, moving northerly across the open fields north of Cedar Lake Road and then spread to the 40 acres of peat swamp that was dry, dry.  The fire truck arrived with its small tanks of water, and people came with buckets and gunny sacks which they soaked to slap out the grass fire, but it could not easily be stopped, and so the efforts were to stop the fired from reaching home, saving the homes which were at risk.

The fire swept north, speeded by winds from the southwest across the swamp, leaving the dry peat burning and then across Superior Blvd. [Wayzata] on to the Lawrence M. Larson farm at Cedar Lake Road and Texas.  Then the gun club, and then easterly on the north side of the Blvd., where it was finally stopped by the railroad tracks, leaving behind two huge 40 acre peat fires burning on both sides of Superior Blvd., with no hope of extinguishing it.  It burned for hours, days, months, and finally into the next year, burning even through the winter below the snow, finally stopping, leaving behind fine peat ash which filled the homes with dust and leaving a smell which took years to leave.

It was an adventure for a boy to help beat out the flames and to bring water to replenish the water used to beat out the flames as they approached the houses, and to carry water to the workers who were digging ditches, trenches to fill with sand because the pet was burning under the road and under the railroad tracks.  We would look out of Grandma's home at night and see it surrounded by 40 acres of red coals, read red coals of peat burning on all sides except the small island where sat the home. 






 

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This information comes from a variety of sources: newspapers, books, yearbooks, phone directories, interviews, etc. Given the varied sources, we cannot guarantee that all of this information is correct, and welcome any additions and corrections. Please contact us with your contributions and comments.