Peshtigo [key], city (1990 pop. 3,154), Marinette co., NE Wis., on the Peshtigo River 6 mi (9.7 km) inland from its mouth on Green Bay; inc. 1903. Located in a dairying and lumbering region, the city is a resort town that also produces paper, transportation equipment, laminated lumber, and tools. A nearby memorial and museum recall the Peshtigo Fire, Oct. 8, 1871, in which 1,182 people were killed by a wildfire that ultimately consumed more that 1 million acres (400,000 hectares) of forest. Peshtigo—at the time an important lumbering center—and several villages were destroyed. Because the disaster occurred in a remote area and on the same night as the Great Chicago Fire, it is little remembered.
See study by R. W. Wells (1968).
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