Ramsey County History – Fall 1972: “Brave Men in Their Motor Machines–And the 1918 Forest Fire”

Brave Men in Their Motor Machines–And the 1918 Forest Fire
Author: Arnold L. Luukkonen

The Minnesota Home Guard was created in 1917 to replace the Minnesota National Guard, which had been federalized for World War I. One of its components was the Motor Corps, made up of volunteers who “offered their private automobiles as a means of transporting the Home Guard to any point within the state.” The calamitous northern Minnesota forest fires of October 1918 brought the Home Guard into action. The Motor Corps first carried supplies to the relief trains in St. Paul and Minneapolis, then troops to Moose Lake. There the volunteer drivers brought in survivors and ferried firefighters to unquenched fires. Later they transported troops to keep order and prevent looting. When influenza broke out, they distributed medical and public health supplies. The Home Guard commander said, “Had it not been for the Motor Reserve, … the splendid work done by other organizations would have been seriously hampered, if not completely nullified.”
PDF of Lukkonen article