Pulaski Project finds remains of namesake

A minor mystery of North Idaho history was cleared up recently when the grave of firefighting folk hero Ed Pulaski was traced to a cemetery plot in Coeur d’Alene.

Pulaski was an early-day ranger for the U.S. Forest Service and is famous for helping to save dozens of firefighters near Wallace during a massive wildfire 94 summers ago today. He also invented a firefighting tool that bears his name and remains popular.

Locating his grave doesn’t compare with finding the Dead Sea Scrolls or a Lewis and Clark campsite – a handful of distant relatives and Forest Service officials knew where he was buried – but the fact had long eluded local history buffs, including Ron Roizen, of Wallace. Even cemetery officials had no idea a quasi-celebrity was resting under their care.

“It’s a discovery, but only sort of a discovery,” Roizen admitted.

The granite tombstone stands as a bookend for Pulaski’s life and it also adds a colorful twist to the story: the marker bears a nobleman’s title. The inscription, Count Edward C. Pulaski, piqued Roizen’s curiosity and sent him on a mission to learn the full story. “I relish these types of things,” he said.

Roizen is one of the leaders of the Pulaski Project, which aims to create a national wildfire education center in Wallace. The group helped secure $300,000 in federal funding recently to build an interpretive trail to the hillside mineshaft where Pulaski and 45 firefighters found refuge in the “Big Blowup” of 1910. The men were trying to escape a fire that raged up the West Fork of Placer Creek. When one of the men panicked and tried to escape the cramped quarters, Pulaski drew his revolver and said, according to numerous accounts, “‘The first man who tries to leave this tunnel I will shoot.’”

The fire was hot and suffocating enough that the entire crew passed out in the tunnel. Five never wakened. In later years, Pulaski faithfully tended the graves of the dead firefighters, but he rarely spoke of the event. Pulaski remained the ranger in Wallace until he retired in 1930.

Not much has been published on Pulaski’s final years, Roizen said, and few people seemed to know where the ranger was buried. Arizona State University Professor and fire expert Stephen Pyne shed light on the question during research for his book, “Year of the Fires: The Story of the Great Fires of 1910.”

When Roizen learned from Pyne that Pulaski was buried in Coeur d’Alene’s Forest Cemetery, he tried to pinpoint the location by calling the city Parks and Recreation Department, which manages the cemetery.

“We had no idea,” said the department’s director, Doug Eastwood. “We know the name. We have his tool and use them in city parks.”

City officials were doubly intrigued because they are putting together a walking tour of the historic Government Way cemetery, which they hope to have ready by next summer. But until Pulaski’s name was unearthed, only local celebrities made the list. Although Pulaski’s grave isn’t as famous as, say, Grant’s Tomb, the site could attract a fair number of firefighters and Western history enthusiasts, Eastwood said. “This got everybody excited. He’s revered as a hero.”

Pulaski’s royal title makes the grave even more interesting, Eastwood said.

Roizen helped clear up the question by contacting Pulaski’s grand nephew, Doug Casey, 77, of Woodland, Wash. Pulaski and his wife, Emma, adopted a daughter but had no direct descendants. Although the title is written in stone, Pulaski’s blood probably didn’t run blue, Casey said.

Emma Pulaski believed her husband came from the same line as Brigadier General Casimir Pulaski, a Revolutionary War hero and Polish nobleman. Ed Pulaski likely scoffed at the notion – Casimir Pulaski was mortally wounded in battle and had no known children – but Emma had other ideas, Casey said. “She was a countess in her own mind.”

Casey was born and raised in Coeur d’Alene, but he was only a toddler when his Uncle Ed died. Casey’s father later told him that Ed Pulaski was a kind-hearted, quiet man who loved the forests of North Idaho and whose lungs were forever weakened by the 1910 fire.

Emma Pulaski lived 17 years after her husband’s death. Casey has fond memories of visiting Countess Pulaski’s downtown Coeur d’Alene home. She wore fine clothes and always served her guests tea, he said. She also told fortunes with palms, cards or tea leaves.

As a young man, Casey worked as a firefighter and spent countless sweaty, smoky hours chopping fireline with the tool bearing his uncle’s name. Back then, the mention of a Pulaski made Casey and his friends think of a torture device. Today, the name prompts colorful memories of a dignified matron and her modest hero of a husband.

There’s one other twist to the Pulaski grave story, Casey said. Not only did Emma outlive her husband and have a noble title engraved on his headstone, she also made sure that neither marker listed a birthdate.

“She never wanted anybody to know how old she was,” Casey said.