The Phillips Fire

On July 27, 1894 the village of Phillips in Price County was destroyed by fire. That summer was one of intense heat and drought. Timber slashings were tinder dry and piles of logs and hemlock bark were everywhere. The residents had fought off a fire the previous evening, but on the 27th the fire came from three different directions. The entire town of 400 homes was burned to the ground.

Thirteen people were killed as they fled the fire by boat. Frank Cliss and his young daughter Myrtle were two of the deceased. His wife Mary Locke Cliss was the only survivor of three families who were on a boat that capsized as they tried to row out onto the lake to safety. James Locke, Mary's brother, and his family were among those who drowned. 

Frank Cliss (1866-1894) was the youngest son of Martha Elizabeth Hales Cliss. After she and Joseph Cliss divorced, he stayed with his mother, while his older brother Robert lived with his father.

Other fires plagued the Wisconsin/Michigan area that same summer destroying many acres of forest land. The logging industry was in its prime at this time.

A painting purported to be by Arthur Fredrick Winkler, a Phillips resident who was seven years old at the time of the fire, has been donated to the Price County Historical Museum. His descendants believe that an employee of Arthur's was the actual painter, however.





*52 Ancestors: "Fire"