The Big Burn (42 page)

Description of blacks, from
Collier's,
September 24, 1910.

Race quote, a whiter set of men, from
Seattle Times,
August 28, 1910.

15. The Missing

Weigle, from his narrative in "Report on the 1910 Fires," on file, National Archives, Seattle.

World was black to my eyes, Pulaski, from his account,

Emma's view, from her account, "Memories of a Forest Service Wife."

Nicholson, lack of compensation, from Records of the Forest Service, National Archives, Seattle, and from Spencer,
The Big Blowup.

Weigle, never have I seen conditions so appalling, quoted in
Seattle Times,
August 23, 1910.

Headlines, from
Spokane Spokesman-Review,
August 25, 1910.

Halm believed lost, from
Idaho Press,
August 24, 1910.

Debitt, food supply short, from Crowell and Asleson,
Up the Swiftwater.

Halm's death reported, from
New York Times,
August 27, 1910.

Halm, from his account in
Early Days of the Forest Service.

Haines volunteers to search, from Weigle, "The Great Idaho Fire of 1910."

Halm, from his account in
Early Days of the Forest Service.

Patrick Sullivan, compensation, death, from the Records of the Forest Service, National Archives.

16. The Living and the Dead

Dead bodies as charcoal, from
Seattle Post-Intelligencer,
August 23, 1910.

Pinkie Adair, from oral history project, Latah County Historical Society.

Quote, fire worse than San Francisco earthquake, from
The Missoulian,
August 25, 1910.

Quote, United States just ended its latest war, from
Collier's,
September 24, 1910.

Deaths at Big Creek, from Weigle, "Report on the 1910 Fires"; Spencer,
The Big Blowup;
and Halm, in
Early Days of the Forest Service.

Weigle throwing guy down stairs, from
Idaho Press,
August 25, 1910.

Lullaby story, several versions, this one from Koch,
Forty Years a Forester.

Emma taking care of Ed Pulaski, from her "Memories of a Forest Service Wife."

Italians and consulate's efforts to compensate them, from Records of the Forest Service, National Archives.

17. Fallout

Pinchot placing blame for cause of fire, from
New York Times,
August 27, 1910.

Pinchot quote, more blame, from
Everybody's Magazine,
October 1910.

Blame, back and forth, from
Idaho Press,
September 8, 1910.

Revolutionary speech, from
The Autobiography of William Allen White.

Taft reaction, from Chessman,
Theodore Roosevelt,
and from Miller,
Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism.

New Nationalism speech and reaction, from
The Missoulian,
September 1, 1910, and Theodore Roosevelt Association,
www.theodoreroosevelt.org
.

Pinchot on rebuke to reactionaries, from Anderson,
William Howard Taft.

Taft retreats to bed and weeps, from
The Autobiography of William Allen White,
and Anderson,
William Howard Taft.

Great fun quote, from Pinchot diaries, March 13, 1911.

Opposition to the Forest Service died, from Steen,
The United States Forest Service.

Zane Grey forester book,
The Young Forester,
Grosset and Dunlap, 1910.

Death of Senator Heyburn, from obituary in
New York Times,
October 18, 1912.

18. One for the Boys

Replanting Bitterroots, and Morris's observations on the land after the fire, from "Experiences on a National Forest," by William W. Morris, part of
Early Days of the Forest Service,
on file at the Forest Service Region One headquarters, Missoula.

Pulaski and claims, from "Pulaski, Two Days in August, 1910."

Pulaski self-description, from
American Forests,
July 1984.

Back and forth on Pulaski claims, from memos on file at the Forest Service Region One headquarters, Missoula.

Cost of a memorial, memos on file at the Forest Service Region One headquarters.

Pulaski death, from Forest Service biography, files.
Pinchot appearance and not feeling well, from photographs and Pinchot diaries, January and February 1911.

Pinchot feeling cheerful, from Pinchot diaries, March 1911. Tree dedicated, from National Park Service website,
www.nps.gov/muwo/historyculture/stories.htm.

Heyburn as intense partisan, from the Museum of North Idaho news clips on his life, collected in a single bound file at the museum.

White, mostly rich men quote, from
The Autobiography of William Allen White.

Roosevelt at the end, from Gould,
The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt.

Taft quote on his presidency, from
www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/williamhowardtaft.

Quote, life at its warmest, from Pinchot,
Breaking New Ground.

What fire meant to Forest Service, quote, from
Scorched Earth: How the Fires of Yellowstone Changed America,
by Rocky Barker, Island Press, 2005.

Weigle's second and third acts, from Forest Service archives, Ketchikan, Alaska,
www.fs.fed.us/r10
.

Ranger Debitt's life after Forest Service, from Crowell and Asleson,
Up the Swiftwater.

19. Ashes

Missoula arrival, plans, from Pinchot diaries, several pages quoted in
The Conservation Diaries of Gifford Pinchot,
edited by Harold K. Steen, Forest History Society, 2001.

Pinchot, note on
Gone with the Wind,
from Pinchot diaries, December 3, 1937.

Cornelia and politics, from Miller,
Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism.

Landon comment, from Pinchot diaries, September 18, 1936.

Defeat of Landon, from Pinchot diaries, November 5, 1936.

Koch on lessons of fire and wilderness, from his
Forty Years a Forester.

FDR appraisal of Pinchot "conservation road," from Barker,
Scorched Earth.

First CCC camp, from Steen,
The United States Forest Service.

Pinchot quote, I have been a governor, from
Gifford Pinchot: Private and Public Forester,
by Harold T. Pinkett, University of Illinois Press, 1970.

Pinchot and Henry Graves, from Forest History Society,
www.foresthistory.org.

Greeley vs. Pinchot, from "A Clash of Titans,"
Evergreen,
Winter 1994— 1995.

Greeley on fires, from his
Forests and Men.

Industry praising Greeley, from "A Clash of the Titans."

Greeley on stopping fires, from Spencer,
The Big Blowup.

Mrs. Greeley quote, from Miller,
Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism.

Maclean quote, from his
Young Men and Fire.

"Absolute devastation," from Pinchot diaries, August 11, 1937.

Jack Ward Thomas on fire, quoted in Barker,
Scorched Earth.

"Nobody seemed to know us," from Pinchot diaries, August 10, 1937.

Death of Koch a suicide, from his son's introduction to Koch,
Forty Years a Forester.

Death of Ione Adair, from
Idahoan,
November 26, 1977.

Pinchot commenting on slash, from Pinchot diaries, August 11, 1937.

Pinchot, great days, from Pinchot diaries, August 24, 1937.

Pinchot, greatest sight, from Pinchot diaries, August 26, 1937.

FDR and Pinchot, conservation congress, from Cornelia Bryce Pinchot's account, first published in
Forest History Today,
Spring 1999, and from Miller,
Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism.

Pulaski dedication details, from the author's visit to the site, and from
Spokane Spokesman-Review,
August 21, 2005.

Every coming-of-age story has its keepers. For the Big Burn, most of these archivists, historians, librarians, and storytellers are in warrens and backrooms of the West. I'm grateful, first and foremost, to the U.S. Forest Service, especially at the northern regional office in Missoula. Not only have they kept an exhaustive and detailed record of the 1910 fire, but they have been eager to share it—which has only increased my admiration for this agency. In particular, I would like to thank Carlie Magill, the archive manager.

The president of the Pulaski Project, Jim See, in Wallace, Idaho, is one reason why the name Pulaski continues to find a home with new generations. He launched a conference on a snowy spring day in the Silver Valley that helped to get me started on this book. Also in Wallace, the city's fine Carnegie library and the Wallace District Mining Museum were excellent firsthand sources on the Big Burn. I owe a debt to the Museum of North Idaho in Coeur d'Alene, a great source of original homesteading documents, and the Clearwater County Museum in Orofino, which holds a trove of early Forest Service memoirs among its backroom treasures.

Thanks to Julie Monroe and Nathan Bender, in the Special Collections and Archives Division at the University of Idaho, for pictures and other help, particularly the prints from the Barnard Stockbridge Studio Collection. I was guided to those prints and other pictures from the era by Patricia Hart and Ivar Nelson, scholars and lovers of the West. And without Ann Catt, the curator at the Latah County (Idaho) Historical Society, I never would have had the words of Pinkie Adair, as told in a series of oral histories late in her life.

At the Library of Congress in Washington, I'm indebted to Jeffrey M. Flanner, the head of the reference and reader service section, for guiding me through the many letters and notes of Gifford Pinchot and Teddy Roosevelt, and to the library's crosstown colleague in recordkeeping, the National Archives.

I'm certainly not the first writer drawn to the story of the 1910 fire, and won't be the last. But among the other accounts, I would like to acknowledge Betty Goodwin Spencer for her pioneering work in
The Big Blowup
and the historian Stephen J. Pyne, who knows more about fire than anyone, for his book
Year of the Fires.

At Stanford University, where I found an editing refuge in the Bing Wing of the Green Library, I have the Bill Lane Center for the American West to thank.

For bookbuilding, the kind that moves ideas from thoughts to printed page, I owe much to editors Anton Mueller and Andrea Schulz, and to my longtime agent Carol Mann. Thanks also to Laurence Cooper for fresh eyes and a sharp pen. And for finding an audience, a tip of the hat to Carla Gray and Lori Glazer at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Finally, thanks to my brother Kelly Egan, who first took me into the St. Joe country, some of the finest cutthroat water in the land. Your secrets are safe.