Peshtigo Fire Museum and Cemetery
Researched and contributed by Pat Drees

Photos and information on both to help you plan a visit. You are greeted with life as it was, just prior to the 1871 fire, through home, school and display rooms filled with actual items used  in that time. Volunteers are ready to answer your questions. Admission is free. The cemetery is immediately adjacent to the museum building. Donations are welcomed by this local volunteer organization that lovingly cares for both. There were 11,555 visitors in the year 2000, representing all 50 U.S. States, Washington, D.C. and 22 Foreign Countries, and 31 group tours were conducted.
Peshtigo one month before the fire
for a larger view please click HERE
MUSEUM

Photos courtesy of 
Pat Drees - 
descendant of survivors.


OPEN:
MEMORIAL DAY 
through
Oct. 8
of each year
Staffed and maintained by VOLUNTEERS.

ADMISSION IS FREE.

DONATIONS ARE MOST WELCOMED.

PESHTIGO FIRE MUSEUM
400 OCONTO AVE.
PESHTIGO,WI 54157
Phone: 715-582-3244

One block off Highway 41
at the corner of French Street and Ellis Ave.

The museum is housed in the former Congregational Church building in the Village of Peshtigo. The building was the first church to be rebuilt after the fire of October 8, 1871. Large mural depictions, recreated home and school rooms, display rooms are filled with items common to life in Peshtigo at the time of the fire.

CEMETERY

For a transcription of the grave stones in this cemetery please click HERE.

Mass Grave

The last burial was in 1916.

The mass grave contains the remains of up to 350 unidentified fire victims.

This cemetery was established years before the fire for the members of the Congregational Church in Peshtigo. The church was gone in the fire, but the surviving congregation members decided to open the cemetery to all people who needed a grave site. Eye witness accounts by volunteer rescue workers, after the fire, document wagons carrying human remains lined up as far as three miles, awaiting a chance to put the victims to rest. Some waited with the remains of neighbors, friends and loved ones, while others accompanied unidentified remains to their final resting place. Many were burned beyond recognition and their names will never be known.


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