Refugees Die in Burning Train

The Detroit and Mackinaw Railway attempts to save people from the spread of forest fires, but ends up burning and killing 15 passengers and crew members.

Fifteen people lost their lives on Thursday night in the burning of the Detroit & Mackinaw Railway company’s relief train, which was carrying the inhabitants of the little village of Metz, Mitch., twenty-three miles north of Alpena, to safety from the forest fires which were sweeping away their homes. The ill-fated train was ditched by spreading rails at Nowick, a few miles south of Metz, and the terrified refugees were forced to abandon the cars and rush for safety either down the track, with burning forests on either side, or into the plowed fields near the siding. Eleven of the victims were women and children, who were unable to escape quickly enough from the gondola car which they were occupying. Their charred bodies were found there when rescuers reached the scene. Two of the men victims were members of the train crew. Four additional fatalities occurred in the neighborhood of the wreck. Mr. and Mrs. Fred wagner died from heat and exhaustion on their farm near the scene of the wreck, and Mr. and Mrs. Fred Nowicki, Jr., lost their lives in their burning house near the siding where the wreck occurred. When the forest fires closed in about the little village, a special train of three empty box cars and two coal gondolas was rushed to Metz, in charge of John E. Kinville, conductor; William Foster, engineer; Arthur Lee, fireman, and William Barrett, brakeman. As rapidly as possible the people and their good were loaded into the cars. When the train started there were about 100 frightened people on board. The flames were already sweeping through the village. Nearing the Nowicki crossing, Engineer Foster saw blazing piles of cedar ties on both sides of the track. Opening wide the throttle, he tried to dash through at full speed, but the heat had loosened the rail and they had spread and the train left the track. Blazing pies of ties surrounded it, and in an instant the cars caught fire. The terror stricken people, caught by the peril from which they were fleeing, jumped from the cars and rushed down the track. Three mothers and their nine little ones were not quick enough. They were cremated in the gondola car where they were caught. Brake man WIlliam Barrett sprang into the water tank behind the engine, only to be literally boiled to death as the flames swept over it.

“Refugees Die in Burning Train,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed August 13, 2026, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/731.