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—— ON THIS DAY ——
OCTOBER 8, 1871
Chicago, Illinois, USA
155 years ago
The Great Chicago Fire of October 8 to 10, 1871, which burned more than three square miles of the city, killed about three hundred people, and left roughly one hundred thousand homeless.
At about nine o'clock on the evening of Sunday, October 8, 1871, a fire started in or near a small barn behind the home of Patrick and Catherine O'Leary on DeKoven Street, on the southwest side of Chicago. The city was primed to burn. It had been built fast and almost entirely of wood, including its sidewalks and many of its streets. Barely an inch of rain had fallen since July. Firefighters, exhausted from a large blaze the night before, were at first sent to the wrong address.
Driven by a strong southwest wind, the fire leapt the south branch of the Chicago River, consumed the business district, jumped the main river, and swept through the North Side. The waterworks burned, leaving hoses dry. When rain finally helped put out the flames on Tuesday morning, an area four miles long and nearly a mile wide lay in ashes. About 17,500 buildings were gone, roughly 300 people were dead, and 100,000 of the city's 300,000 residents had no home.
—— MARQUEE EVENT ——
The Chicago School of architecture, the group of architects and engineers who rebuilt the city's commercial core and, in the process, developed the steel-framed skyscraper.
Almost immediately, the story spread that Mrs. O'Leary's cow had kicked over a lantern while being milked. Catherine O'Leary, an Irish immigrant, made a convenient scapegoat in a city with little love for the Irish poor. She testified that she had been in bed when the fire started, and an official inquiry could not determine the cause. In 1893 the reporter Michael Ahern admitted that he and colleagues had invented the cow story to liven up their copy. The Chicago City Council formally cleared Mrs. O'Leary and her cow in 1997, which came more than a century too late to do her any good.
On the very same night, a far deadlier fire tore through the lumber town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, and the surrounding forest, killing well over a thousand people. It remains the deadliest wildfire in American history and was almost entirely overshadowed by the news from Chicago.
Chicago's recovery became its founding legend. Donations arrived from across the country and abroad, and rebuilding began while the ruins were still warm. New fire codes required brick, stone, and iron in the central district. High land prices and new technology pushed buildings upward, and in 1885 the ten-story Home Insurance Building, supported by a metal frame, became what is generally regarded as the first skyscraper. By 1893, just twenty-two years after the fire, Chicago had more than a million people and was host to the World's Columbian Exposition. The second red star on the city's flag commemorates the fire.
—— WHY THIS MATTERS ——
The fire reshaped American building practice. Chicago's new fire codes and the push for fireproof construction influenced cities across the country, and the insurance and firefighting professions were reorganized in its wake.
Rebuilding produced the modern skyscraper. A cleared downtown, expensive land, and ambitious architects made Chicago the laboratory for steel-frame construction, a method that went on to define city skylines around the world.
The O'Leary legend shows how quickly blame finds the vulnerable. A fabricated newspaper story about an immigrant woman outlived everyone involved and is still repeated, a lasting example of how scapegoating and sensational reporting can harden into folklore.
—— THE TAKEAWAY ——
On the night of October 8, 1871, a fire began near a barn on DeKoven Street and did not stop for two days. It took three hundred lives and the homes of a hundred thousand people. Chicago rebuilt in brick and steel, invented the skyscraper along the way, and eventually got around to apologizing to the cow.
—— QUOTE OF THE DAY ——
“Chicago shall rise again.”
— Chicago Tribune editorial, October 11, 1871
—— OUR QUIZ OF THE DAY ——
How much do you know about the Great Chicago Fire, the legend of Mrs. O'Leary's cow, the Peshtigo fire the same night, and the rebuilding that produced the first skyscrapers?
