Firestorm at Peshtigo : A Town, Its People, and the Deadliest Fire in American History

by Denise Gess and William Lutz

• ISBN13: 9780805067804
• ISBN10: 0805067809
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2002-08-02
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

Summary

On October 8, 1871the same night as the Great Chicago Firean even deadlier conflagration was sweeping through the lumber town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, 260 miles north of Chicago. The five-mile-wide wall of flames, borne on tornado-force winds of 100 miles per hour, tore across more than 2,400 square miles of land, obliterating Peshtigo in less than one hour and killing more than 2,000 people.Firestorm at Peshtigo places the reader at the center of the blow-out. Through accounts of newspaper publishers Luther Noyes and Franklin Tilton, lumber baron Isaac Stephenson, parish priest Father Peter Pernin, and meteorologist Increase Laphamthe only person who understood the unusual and dangerous nature of this fireDenise Gess and William Lutz re-create the story of the people, the politics, and the place behind this monumental natural disaster, delivering it from the lost annals of American history.Drawn from survivors letters, diaries, interviews, and local newspapers, Firestorm at Peshtigo tells the human story behind Americas deadliest wildfire.

Author Biography

Denise Gess, author of two critically acclaimed novels, is the visiting assistant professor of fiction writing at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington.

William Lutz is a professor of English at Rutgers University, Camden, and author of fifteen books, including the bestseller Doublespeak. They live in Philadelphia.

Table of Contents

Dramatis Personae	xiii
Prologue	1	(2)
False Prophets	3	(60)
Eden Burns	63	(64)
Revelations	127	(94)
Epilogue	221	(2)
Afterword	223	(2)
Notes	225	(18)
Bibliography	243	(10)
Acknowledgments	253	(4)
Index	257