Continuing the Superior Connection
Sunday, February 14th Leonard and Maryls Schmidt presented a history of the Fires of 1918 to the Douglas County Historical Society. The meeting was held in their facility, the former "Vasa Lodge", located at 11th and John in Superior. The Moose Lake delegation, including Nancy Hanson and Ross Anderson were welcomed by their president Nancy Minahan.
Leonard talked about his connection to Superior. His mother was working for a physician in Superior at the time of the fire. Because of this connection with the physician, Leonard and his brothers and sisters were all born in Superior. Most of his mothers family perished in the fire.
Maryls spoke of the Superior connection to dealing with refugees from the fire. With very short notice, Mayor Baxter organized Superior to receive fire survivors, some severely injured. All in all Superior received in excess of 5,000 refugees from the fire, about 10% of their total population at the time. Some of the survivors stayed in Superior for several months, and were housed in private homes.
David Johnson, a Superior Fire Fighter presented the Moose Lake delegation with a bound book of articles from the Superior Telegram relating to the Fires of 1918. He had initially E-mailed down to us about 50 pages of fire stories. This new volume is some 300 pages, and will be available at the Depot Annex.