But it's been nothing compared to the influenza outbreak of 1918-19.

In September 1918, 64 cases of influenza were recorded in the Badger State. Three months later, the flu had killed more Wisconsin residents than World War I, the Korean War and the Vietnam War combined.

In a mere 12 weeks, more than 100,000 people were infected and almost 8,500 died. Individuals in fine health suddenly collapsed and expired within hours.

That October, as the disease swept from south to north, the state Board of Health advised patients to "Keep warm. Keep away from other people. Do not kiss anyone."

Eventually, officials closed all schools, theaters, saloons, churches and other places where people gathered. Nearly all public venues other than workplaces were shut down.

As winter set in, fear gripped communities large and small. Outside Oconto, workers built bonfires in the cemetery to thaw the ground so they could bury the victims.

"My mother almost died on Christmas Eve," one woman recalled. "Christmas came that year and gifts were put on our front porch" -- because friends were too scared to enter the house. By spring, the flu had burned itself out in Wisconsin and moved west in search of new victims.

The 1918 "Spanish" flu was a very different disease than today 's, and the medical profession lacked modern tools with which to fight it. But to a generation that survived two world wars and the Great Depression, it was remembered as a horror unlike any other.

-- Wisconsin Historical Society
www.wisconsinhistory.org

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