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10/17/2026

The flames reached 4 miles into the sky that day. The firestorm bellowed with a deafening roar and travelled at a speed even the fastest horse could not outrun. It spawned its own weather with hurricane-force winds and tornadoes of fire. Glowing blobs of gas floated in the sky until they burst and rained fire on those below. More than 400 square miles burned in only 5 hours, killing hundreds and obliterating several towns along the way. The date is September 1st, 1894, the place is Hinkley, Minnesota.

Hinkley was thriving, despite the fact that barely 2 inches of rain had fallen since May. There were two train depots and the 36-acre Brennan lumber mill with 28 million board feet of cut lumber stacked in its yard. Logging had replaced the fur trade in this area of the Ojibwe homeland. Timbermen had assaulted the white pine forests at a tremendous rate, hauling away the massive tree trunks while leaving behind piles of branches and debris, known as slash.

People weren’t too concerned with the smoke hanging in the air. Small fires were common, often started by sparks from passing trains. On this day, two of those fires that had started south of Hinkley were picking up speed as they jumped from one pile of slash to another before combining forces into one blaze.

Tommy Dunn was working at his station at the telegraph office. He was confused about the lack of responses from messages sent to stations south of Hinkley. One chilling message arrived. The town of Pokegama was gone and people were dead. The telegraph was the town’s only contact with the outside world and Tommy stayed at his post that day until sending his last message, “I think I’ve stayed too long,” and perished in the fire.

Spot fires appeared at the southwest edge of town and quickly overwhelmed the fire department. Even before the towering flames of the firestorm roared into Hinkley, people were dropped in their tracks by waves of heat reaching almost 2,000 degrees. The outside walls of houses burned instantaneously, revealing the rooms inside before the whole structure went up and people’s hair and clothes burst into flames. The wagon road out of town was clogged with people and littered with abandoned baggage. Some made it to the low water of the sawdust-covered Grindstone River near the mill. Most were simply moving too slow.

At 3:25 a train rolled up to the Eastern Minnesota Depot driven by engineer William Best. He could see that everything beyond the yards was on fire and a crowd of people was streaming toward the train. In the town Dr. Stephan ran through streets lined with burning buildings and grabbed lost children two at a time before handing them to strangers boarding the train and going back for more.

Engineer Edward Barry was with his freight train on a sidetrack. It was decided to couple Barry’s locomotive to the back of Best’s train along with three empty boxcars, which were soon filled with terrified refugees. Best, now at the back of the train, applied the airbrakes to keep Barry from moving the train until more desperate people could reach the cars. Soon, the burning ties were warping the rails, endangering the entire train and Best released the brakes. Just after 4:00 PM the train rumbled out of Hinkley with a locomotive on each end, both facing backwards.

As well as the fire chasing the retreating train, there was the danger of collapsing trestles and bridges. The largest was the Kettle River High Bridge at Sandstone. This was a spindly structure 850 feet across and 130 feet above the water. As the train approached, they could see flames and smoke coming from the gorge below. The train, carrying around 500 refugees, crept forward making it across the bridge just before it collapsed into the river below.

At 4:05, as Best and Barry were backing away from the Eastern Minnesota Depot, James Root’s train was slowly approaching Hinkley through the thick smoke on the Saint Paul and Duluth tracks across town. He braked hard when he saw a crowd of people running towards him through the thick smoke. Some were black with soot, others had their clothes nearly burned off, and some were babbling incoherently with fear. A man finally explained to the confused Root that all of Hinkley was on fire.

A porter on Root’s train, John Blair, began helping people board the train. Blair was probably the only African American on the train at a time when railroads were hiring Black men as porters because they would show deference to the white passengers, some of these men having been previously enslaved. On this day, the passengers would remember Blair for his incredible courage, strength, and calm in their time of crisis.

Root could see a wall of flames racing towards the train and threw it into reverse. Grease at the bottom of the cars had ignited and they were beginning to burn. As they passed the lumber mill there was a massive explosion. The train rocked and the windows on one side blew out. In the locomotive shards of glass sliced into Root’s face and neck and he slumped over the controls unconscious as the train slowed to a crawl.

Root’s fireman, Jack McGowan, managed to revive him and the train started moving again. The windows on the other side imploded and flames licked across the ceiling above the hysterical passengers. Blair moved through the cars calming people, helping them hold wet towels to their faces, and spraying their clothes with a chemical fire extinguisher.

Flames from the bottoms of the cars were reaching over the roofs when Root slammed the train to a stop by Skunk Lake, not much more than a muddy swamp with about three feet of water at its deepest. Crew members threw water on the steps so the nearly 200 passengers could get out of the burning train to take refuge in the lake where they survived the fire.

The official death toll of the Hinkley Firestorm was 418, but this didn’t count the unknown number of Ojibwe and backcountry folks who lost their lives. In the town, many bodies were burned beyond recognition and 248 are buried in four trenches in a cemetery east of town, where a monument was erected in 1900. The depot in Hinkley was quickly rebuilt to allow relief trains to reach the site and is now the Hinkley Fire Museum where a dedicated group of volunteers make sure that the events and people of the Great Hinkley Firestorm are not forgotten.

The post got longer than most that I put up. Even editing it down to this length felt disrespectful to the stories of survival and heroism I had to leave out.

Images: The historic depot, now the home of the Hinkley Fire Museum, the replacement for the Kettle River High Bridge that collapsed after the Best/Barry train passed over, and the trenches and monument to the victims of the Great Hinkley FIrestorm.

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09/29/2026

You enjoy a tasty sandwich and then become violently ill before your hands and feet fall off. Maybe some serious hallucinations are involved, and death is a strong probability. Is it witchcraft? No. It’s ergotism and I was introduced to the importance of the subject at the Dassel Area Historical Society and History Museum in Dassel, Minnesota, which proves once again that you should never overlook the big stories told at small town museums.

Ergotism is a form of poisoning from ingesting grains, usually rye, that have been infected by the fungus Claviceps purpurea, which replaces individual grains with dark purple ergots. These get mixed with the grain during harvest and then ground into flour for food like bread.

Ergot has been feared by farmers for thousands of years and a Sumerian clay tablet (1900–1700 BCE) contains a prayer for protection against ergot. There were multiple outbreaks of ergotism in Europe that took hundreds of thousands of lives, especially during the Little Ice Age (1300-1700 CE) when conditions led to increased levels of fungus growth. These outbreaks of ergotism may be linked to episodes of witch hunts.

There are two forms of ergotism. It can become a gangrenous form affecting the limbs, causing them to turn black and sometimes even fall off. Another form is convulsive, which affects the neurological system such as the brain and nerves, causing painful spasms, fits, and hallucinations. L*D (lysergic acid diethylamide) or acid is made from the alkaloids of ergot.

While ergot was feared, it also had medicinal uses. As far back as 1100 BCE we find records in China of ergot being used to induce labor and control hemorrhaging during childbirth. Midwives in Europe also understood these uses of ergot.

But what does this have to do with Dassel, Minnesota and this building?

In the early 1900s scientists at the Eli Lilly pharmaceutical laboratories led research into identifying medical uses for the alkaloids in ergot. Medications were developed to treat migraines, hemorrhaging, and obstetrical issues.

The ergot for these medications came from Europe but in the 1930s political unrest cut off those sources. When Dassel resident L.R. Peel heard about the situation he travelled to the grain producing areas of the U.S. and Canada and convinced farmers to send their infested grain to Dassel.

Peel started Universal Laboratories in 1937 to supply the Eli Lilly company with ergot. Women were employed to separate the ergot from the healthy grains, which provided a rare employment opportunity for them. Families also earned extra income from bringing home bags of grain and separating out the ergot around their kitchen tables.

During World War II many battlefield deaths from hemorrhaging were prevented by drugs made from ergot processed in this very building.

In 1963 Eli Lily stopped buying ergot and instead purchased extracted ergot alkaloids from Europe. By the end of the 1970s, ergot alkaloids were being produced synthetically, which ended the business at Universal Laboratories.

The Universal Laboratories building was donated to the Dassel Area Historical Society in 1993. It took a great deal of work and money to get it to the condition you see today. Beyond learning about a fascinating fungus, a museum visitor is introduced to a real Munchkin who had been featured in the Wizard of Oz movie and a strong-willed Swedish immigrant who made it to Congress as well as other local history.

I am passionate about learning new history and am always scanning maps, looking for new museums to explore. That is also why I made sure 3D History Trek offered the service of putting museums on Google Street View to get them in front of history lovers like ourselves.

After visiting the Dassel History Center and Ergot Museum I grabbed lunch at a charming cafe just down the highway. I didn’t order a sandwich this time. For some reason bread just didn’t seem appealing.

Contact 3D History Trek to tell the unique stories of your museums and historic places. https://3dhistorytrek.com/

The opinions expressed in the blog are the opinions of the author based on a personal visit and research,
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09/24/2026

3D History Trek is represented by the grinning woman second from left (owner, Val Woelfel). The History Hike started with a museum visit, lunch at the Mermaid Cafe, and wrapped up with a hike through Banning State Park, to explore the site of a quarry that operated from 1890 through 1912. A great day for a group of history nerds.

09/20/2026

The Civil War, a pioneer of landscape architecture, and a photobomb all in one place. These images are from the Civil War Days event at the LeDuc Historic Estate in Hastings, Minnesota.

Every historic house has its own unique story, and the LeDuc Mansion is no different. Part of this story comes from the LeDuc family, who built and lived in the home. William Gates LeDuc was an attorney, Civil War veteran, and U.S. Commissioner of Agriculture under President Hayes (1877–1881). He and his wife, Mary, moved from Ohio to St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1850, where they set up the city’s first bookstore as well as William’s legal practice.

The LeDucs moved to the recently founded town of Hastings in 1856. William received the plot of land that the mansion sits on as payment for legal services, and work on the house was started in 1862. Construction was interrupted by the Civil War, and the house was not completed until 1866.

Beyond the house and the family story, the LeDuc Estate is significant because it is an unusually complete example of the work of pioneer American landscape architect Andrew Jackson Downing. Downing had already passed away at this time, but William and Mary were inspired by his book Cottage Residences and chose three of his Gothic Revival designs for their estate.

Downing had started the movement for great urban parks such as New York’s Central Park and emphasized using good design and surrounding homes with the beauty of nature. The main house on the LeDuc estate has 15 rooms, 52 windows, and walls of local limestone. It included an art studio and a room in the tower with panoramic views as a retreat for William. (I have always wanted a tower retreat myself.) Like most construction projects, the house came significantly over budget.

On the day I was shooting at the estate, a group of reenactors with the 1st Minn USSS was providing events and information for visitors. Reenactors are fellow history lovers who recreate historic events minus the uncomfortable parts, like cholera and having your leg sawed off without anesthesia. For a location like the LeDuc Estate, they provide a living history experience for sites that don’t have the staff or budget to do it on their own. Some people think that reenactors are kind of weird, with an obsession for their hobby. I say if history is your passion, you be you.

As I set up a shot and was adjusting the settings on my camera, I was photobombed. It made me wonder if somewhere in an attic there is an aging tintype containing the world’s first photobomb. No doubt, someone’s annoying younger sibling.

3D History Trek helps historic sites connect with wider audiences through virtual tours. We would be delighted to answer questions and hear your ideas for the sites and stories that inspire you.

https://3dhistorytrek.com/

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09/10/2026

A big thanks to the Gopher State Railway Museum for letting me photograph their trains. It inspired me to learn more about the Pullman cars. I plan to follow up with a post about the Black porters who worked in the cars and their important story.

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https://3dhistorytrek.com/

08/20/2026

More than 53,000 lives were lost in the massive earthquake that shook Turkey in February 2023. Alongside that tragedy was the loss of cultural heritage when historic mosques, markets, churches, and other sites were reduced to rubble. As each building went down, it took with it the memories, stories, and traditions that had become part of the physical fabric of the site. 3D History Trek is working with Assistant Professor Dr. Patricia Blessing of the Stanford University Art History Department to capture some of that meaning in the hard-hit city of Antakya, Turkey.

During the project, members of the Stanford team visit Antakya to collect photographs, panoramas, and other information from the residents. 3D History Trek than builds immersive virtual tours that incorporates this material.

I also had an opportunity to meet with Kelli Schmitz, Program Manager at the Center for Disaster Philanthropy. While not involved in the Stanford project, Ms. Schmitz had recently been to Antakya and had been struck by how the elders in the city were concerned that the younger generation didn’t understand what they had lost when the historic buildings were destroyed. These places had embodied traditions and values and were places of human stories, rituals, and shared knowledge, not just physical structures.
The post-earthquake image in this set was taken by Fatih Han. You can see in the image that a friendly cat came to visit. Just a quiet reminder that beyond the tragedy of the human lives lost, animals are impacted as well.

Our thoughts are with the people of Antakya as they work to heal.

Valerie Woelfel, Owner. 3D History Trek
https://3dhistorytrek.com/

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08/04/2026

A summer day. A lakeside streetcar station in Minneapolis and passengers climbing on and off the big yellow cars. Children are excited, elders are reminiscing, but these streetcars are more than a nostalgic ride. Streetcar technology shaped American cities at a time they were growing at an incredible rate. Here in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul we are fortunate to have the Minnesota Streetcar Museum (MSM), which runs cars like the one in this image as museums on rails.

Before the Industrial Revolution, most American cities were small enough to walk wherever you needed to go. As the culture changed, more people moved to urban areas from the countryside and public transportation was needed. The answer was the omnibus, large horsedrawn carriages that were uncomfortable for riders and difficult horses to pull. Railroads were the trending technology in the 1830s and it wasn’t long before people figured out to put the vehicles on rails, which were easier for horses to pull and more comfortable to ride. The idea took off in the 1850s and in 1872 the first horsecar started rolling in St. Paul, MN.

As a horse owner, I can confirm that they eat a lot, p**p a lot, and sometimes go lame or get sick. It took 5 or 6 horses to keep a streetcar running and people were searchng for a way to mechanize the horsecars.

Frank Sprague was the man who solved the problem of creating an electric railway. Minneapolis got its first electric line in late 1889 and St. Paul started theirs a month later. Soon the whole system had been converted to electric and the horsecars were obsolete.

Switching to electric meant rigging the entire system with powerlines and there would eventually be 523 miles of streetcar lines in the Twin Cities. This was all privately funded, mostly be a group headed by Thomas Lowry. The streetcar company, which became the Twin City Rapid Transit Company, had a franchise with each city. This included building the tracks, plowing snow on the roads, and maintaining the pavement along the rails. Lowry even built two amusement parks just outside of the cities to drive traffic. At one time, there were over 400 of these streetcar amusement parks in the country.

Streetcar ridership peaked in the 1920s, dropped during the Depression, and rose again during World War II. The arrival of the automobile cause trouble from the beginning, including a sort of proto-rideshare known as jitneys. The streetcar company got the jitneys banned and when buses began to draw away ridership, they simply bought all the buses.

Unlike streetcars, the buses didn’t stop at every corner. They were also cheaper to run and could go places that streetcars didn’t reach. Just as the horsecars had given way to electric railways, the streetcars gave way to buses and the last streetcar ran in 1949.

The impact of the streetcar system goes far beyond the tracks that still lie under some streets. Development followed wherever the streetcar lines went and fashioned the shape of the cities that we still have today. The infrastructure needed to power and run the system can be found scattered throughout Minneapolis and St. Paul. Today we have the modern light rail system and the route of the Green Line, which runs near my studio, was deliberately chosen to follow the path that the streetcars travelled for over 60 years.

The image was taken at reconstruction of a 1901 streetcar stop at Bde Mka Ska where you can enjoy a ride on an original streetcar. The black and white photograph is from the same location in 1939. Visit the Minnesota Streetcar Museum (MSM) for more information.

I partner with historic sites, museums, and heritage tourism groups to tell place-based stories using 360° photography. Contact me to reach a wider audience with the stories your organization has to share.

https://3dhistorytrek.com/

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07/06/2026

Accessible. That word comes to mind when I am taking shots like these at Kolossi Castle in Cyprus. I never take for granted that I can climb these steps and ascend the winding staircase to the castle roof. I never take for granted that I have the opportunity to explore places like Kolossi far from my Minnesota home. Nothing can replace an in-person visit, but one of the activities I enjoy most with 3D History Trek is partnering with organizations who are inspired to create virtual experiences as outreach for those who can’t visit sites in person.

In April of 1191, the king of England Richard I was heading to Acre to join the Crusades when a storm struck his fleet and scattered the ships. The ship carrying Richard’s sister Joan and his new fiancée, Berengaria of Navarre, ended up anchored off the south coast of Cyprus at Limassol. Several other vessels were wrecked nearby. Survivors of the wrecks were taken prisoner by the island's ruler, Isaac Komnenos, who also looted the belongings of both the living and the dead.

Starting an argument with Richard, a man who would later be known as “Lionheart”, turned out to be a very poor decision on Isaac’s part. After a few brief conflicts between the two, Richard conquered the island and Isaac died in prison. Richard and Berengaria were married at nearby Limassol Castle, and she was crowned Queen of England. At the wedding they enjoyed a sweet w**e called Commandaria, which will show up in our story later.

A castle was built on this site around 1210 by the Frankish military and was granted to the Knights of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem (Hospitallers). After ruling Cyprus briefly, Richard sold the island to the Templars, but the Templars were disbanded in 1313 after they got too big for their armored britches and the castle and its land passed back to the Hospitallers.

The castle you see in these images replaced the 1210 building. It was constructed by the Hospitallers in 1454 under the Grand Commander of Kolossi, Louis de Magnac. The castle stands 21 meters high and each of the four sides is 16 meters long. The entrance was accessed by a drawbridge and above that is a machicoulis, an opening in the battlements for pouring scalding water or oil on any uninvited guests. The machicoulis is currently the site of many cellphones dropped by tourists from the roof.

In addition to its military role, Kolossi Castle was important because it was part of a wealthy property that included 60 villages and a large sugarcane plantation. Western Europeans became acquainted with sugarcane during the Crusades when they occupied ports in Palestine and Syria, where there were already sugar plantations and sugar factories. From the time of the Crusaders until the 16th century sugar was one of the most essential agricultural products in Cyprus.

One of the products created at the Kolossi plantation was the sweet w**e Commandaria, named after the site which was the location of the Grand Commander. In addition to this w**e being served at the wedding of Richard and Berengaria, it was a favorite w**e of the Plantagenet Kings. You can still enjoy Commandaria today. It is considered the oldest named w**e still in production and demonstrates that history is not only a feast for the eyes and the mind, but your taste buds can enjoy the story as well.

Contact 3D History Trek to share your sites and stories in immersive 360. https://3dhistorytrek.com/

06/09/2026

An old mudbrick house on the backstreets of the Cypriot village of Alampra. These old, abandoned houses are a common sight on the island, where I have worked as a long-term staff member at the archaeological site of Idalion. The traditional building materials of these old houses closely reflect the architecture of the ancient site we are excavating. The houses tell stories of both continuity and change.

Mud brick is made from a combination of clay soil, chopped straw, and water that is mixed together and dried in the sun. (“Adobe” is a type of mudbrick that refers to the sun-dried earthen brick associated with Spanish, Arabic, and Native American heritage.) The materials for creating mud brick are local, which gives the architecture a connection to the landscape and results in regional variations. Mountain villages in Cyprus used a dark, volcanic stone while coastal villages incorporated coral stone and shells into the walls. Inland areas, like Alampra, used the local limestone.

A lime plaster covered the mudbrick once the walls were in place. A roof of timber beams and ceramic roof tiles completed the structure. The plaster protects the mud brick from eroding while allowing the brick to breathe so moisture doesn’t build up in the core. I live in a small mud brick house around the corner from this panorama and I can attest to the ability of the earth walls and small windows to moderate temperatures.

Mud brick houses can survive for centuries with regular maintenance. Once the plaster begins to break off the wall, however, the bricks begin to erode. As the decades pass, walls grow weaker and begin to collapse. The roof comes down, spilling roof tiles as it goes. I have included a photograph in the comments of two houses that appear to have been built around the same time, but one has been maintained while the other has been declared dangerous due to neglect. You can see how the neglected building has lost its protective plaster.

We use these crumbling houses to teach the students on the Idalion excavation about site formation processes. They can see and understand how the ancient city they are excavating developed into the archaeology they see today. We also take them to the abandoned village of Agios Sozomenos to teach them about the conflicts and violence that shaped the modern history of the island.
I would love the opportunity to travel through Cyprus and record in 360° photography the architecture of the old houses and the disappearing traditions that went into their construction.

Often, when you peer through the broken windows of these homes there is furniture just where someone left it, personal items scattered on the floor, and the black and white photographs of forgotten ancestors frowning from their frames on the walls. It makes me wonder about the last person who lived there, the person who knew the names of the ancestors and called the house a home. It is a good reminder for those of us in fields like archaeology to take a moment and step away from the databases, the drones, and the 360 cameras and remember that we got into this work to tell the stories of people.

Contact 3D History Trek to record and share your historic and archaeological sites. https://3dhistorytrek.com/

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05/27/2026

How do you like to “do” a history museum? Do you stop at every exhibit and read every word, or focus on the displays that connect with your interests? Those exhibits are only one way that museums generate knowledge, and they hold only a small fraction of the museum’s collection,.

Behind the scenes at a museum are the storerooms where they protect and study the objects in their care. Many objects require special storage to prevent them from degrading over time, and the storeroom of a large museum may contain millions of artifacts, Even a smaller museum, like the Anoka County Historical Society in the image, are responsible for thousands of artifacts.

Museum storerooms are not just spaces where objects are kept, they are also places of discovery. This is where researchers study these old objects with new techniques, new technology, and new questions to find new ways to share the human story.

Each item in a collection needs to be carefully recorded and stored in a database. The picture with this post shows a staff member and two volunteers reviewing the museum records in preparation for moving the entire collection to a new location after the building they had been occupying was sold. which is a major undertaking.

Next time you visit a history museum (or any museum), remember the work happening behind the walls in the storerooms. Better yet, consider volunteering. You might be the next person uncovering amazing stories hidden on the shelves in a museum’s storeroom.

3D History Trek supports museums and historic sites with 360 virtual tours that help them compete in a crowded digital world while sharing their mission with a wider audience.
https://3dhistorytrek.com/

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