The Great Fire of 1923
By Bear Wheeler
This is an update to a story that was written and published on August, 18, 2023.
An event inside the central heating plant that was located within the drug store occurred on February 18, 1923. This changed the landscape of Elcho, Wisconsin, for a very long time. Something went wrong right before midnight and started a fire that consumed many of the commercial buildings in Elcho which serviced an estimated 600 residents. Although the heating plant was located inside the drug store, the exact location is lost to time. Unfortunately, in the middle of winter most of the wells in town were frozen and out of commission. As the fire grew, it spread to the surrounding buildings around the drug store because of a strong northwest wind that morning. It must not have been long before most of the town was awake and trying to help save what they could. They had some small hand water pumps that were still in operation and from those started a bucket brigade. They saved the office building of the CW Fish Lumber Company and the telephone office. They used large rugs from the Muskie Inn and threw them on the roofs and doused them with water to protect those buildings from the fire.
The Muskie Inn, the State Bank (formerly Woodmen Hall), the drug store, CW Fish’s office is next to the drug store
As the fire went on, it devoured the bank, the warehouse, the Muskie Inn, general store, and then across the street taking out the depot. Elcho had lacked firefighting apparatus, and there was no relief from that standpoint. In realizing the total loss of everything, the towns people tried to remove items out of the general store, bank and the Muskie Inn as best they could. By the time it was 4:00 a.m. the blaze was under control and by noon it was fully extinguished. There were no reported injuries or deaths from this destructive fire.
On the left is Weaver’s Boarding House (now Boiling Springs on Hwy G), the General Store and the Muskie Inn
The news of this fire spread throughout the whole United States. In researching this, Otto Tiegs III found out that of the 48 states 46 of them had articles about this blaze in their newspapers. Many articles were in various languages of the European immigrants in the larger cities of America. It was reported that during that night the whole area was lit up for miles around because of the glow of the lurid blaze. It was also reported that once the fire was out and cooled off, they opened the safe of the destroyed bank to find all of its contents unharmed. They had early estimates of the damage at $50,000, and that number changed to $125,000, which would be $2.25 million in 2023.
The Elcho Train Depot
Within a couple of weeks, Charles W. Fish and John Singer went to Chicago and secured the funding to rebuild the entire business district. Within six months, the business district reopened on September 1, 1923.