When Firefighters Saved Downtown: The Minneapolis Thanksgiving Day Fire
Sunday, November 20, 2022 at 4:22AMArticle by Michael Rainville, Jr.
Thanksgiving Day, November 25th, 1982. After a long day of eating turkey, visiting with friends and family, and taking a nap, a 29-year-old Michael Rainville got in his 1973 Cadillac Coup de Ville and made his way to pick up his longtime friend Greg and his two sons to go to the St. Paul Civic Center to watch the superstars of the AWA duke it out in the squared circle with Nick Bockwinkel vs. Rick Martel for the AWA World Heavyweight Championship as the main event. Capping off an eventful day of eating and napping with some good ol’ wrasslin’ sounds like the perfect Thanksgiving to me.
Around this same time, two boys, twelve and thirteen, crawled through a snow fence, broke down a plywood door, and started exploring the partially demolished former location of Donaldson’s department store. As they were rummaging around, they stumbled upon some matches and a butane torch.
As Michael pulled up to Greg’s house just past 5pm, Greg, an off-duty Minneapolis firefighter, received an urgent message; Donaldson’s and the Northwestern National Bank Building were ablaze.
