Historical eventSeptember 11894

Great Hinckley Fire

Over 400 people die in the Great Hinckley Fire, a forest fire in Hinckley, Minnesota.

Everything on September 1Original source

In context

When
Saturday, September 1 1894132 years ago
Category
Historical eventA dated happening — a battle, treaty, launch, discovery, disaster or decision — recorded on this calendar day.
Era
19th century · 1890s
Recorded from
Wikipedia “On this day” feed

Russia, Greece and some other countries used the Julian calendar into the early 20th century, so local records may show a date up to 13 days earlier.

At a glance

Dates: From 1894-09-01.

Place: Minnesota, United States.

Type: wildfire.

Deaths reported: 418.

What happened

Description After a two-month summer drought , combined with very high temperatures, several small fires started in the pine forests of Pine County, Minnesota . Two of the fires in particular ignited along the railroad tracks southwest and south of Hinckley, in Quamba and Brown's Hill , respectively. Bog and grass fires, sometimes touched off by steam locomotives, were commonplace in the late-summers of rural Minnesota; the fires' spread apparently was due to the then-common method of lumber harvesting,

The Great Hinckley Fire was a conflagration in the pine forests of the U.S. state of Minnesota that ignited on September 1, 1894, which burned an area of at least 200,000 acres, including the town of Hinckley. The official death count was 418; the actual number of fatalities was likely higher. Other sources put the death toll at 476.

September 1 through the years

Other entries on the same calendar day, in order.

  1. 1894Great Hinckley Fire
  2. 1973Rescue of Roger Mallinson and Roger Chapman
  3. 1973Celtic Sea
  4. 1974Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird
  5. 1981David Dacko
  6. 1982United States Space Force Combat Forces Command
  7. 1983Cold War
  8. 1985Titanic
  9. 2000Speakers' Corner, Singapore
  10. 2004Beslan school siege
  11. 2008Iraq War

Also in 1894

  • May 11Pullman CompanyIn response to a 28-percent wage cut, 4,000 Pullman Palace Car Company workers went on strike in Illinois, bringing rail traffic west of…
  • November 21First Sino-Japanese WarFirst Sino-Japanese War: After capturing the Chinese city of Port Arthur, the Japanese army began a massacre of the city's soldiers and c…
  • July 22Jules-Albert de DionJules-Albert de Dion finished first in the world's first motor race, but did not win as his steam-powered car was against the rules.
  • February 12Ère des attentatsÈre des attentats: In one of the first acts of modern terrorism, Émile Henry threw a bomb into Café Terminus in Paris, France, killing on…
  • June 6Davis Hanson WaiteGovernor Davis Hanson Waite ordered the Colorado state militia to protect and support miners engaged in a five-month strike in Cripple Cr…
  • February 17Rudolf DieselRudolf Diesel's first working diesel engine ran for one minute.
  • April 30Coxey's ArmyA crowd of workers, unemployed due to the Panic of 1893, concluded the first significant popular protest march on Washington D.C.
  • June 30Tower BridgeTower Bridge (pictured), a combined bascule and suspension bridge over the River Thames in London, was inaugurated.

Everything we record for 1894 →

Sources

Cite this page

“Great Hinckley Fire”, What's On This Date, https://whatsonthisdate.com/app/event/great-hinckley-fire-1894-september-1, accessed October 28, 2026.

Cite the underlying source as well — the source links above go to the record this entry is adapted from.

Questions about this entry

When did Great Hinckley Fire happen?

September 1 1894 — 132 years ago, on a Saturday.

Where does this text come from?

Wikipedia “On this day” feed. Summaries are short adaptations that link back to the source, not reprints.

How do I cite this page?

Use the ready-made citation near the sources at the bottom of the page, and follow the source link to cite the underlying record as well.

Text adapted from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA 4.0 and from Wikidata (CC0). Images come from Wikimedia Commons; credit and licence are shown with each image. Editorial entries are © What's On This Date. Sources & licensing · How this site works.