Great Chicago Fire

For about two days, from the evening of 8 October to 10 October 1871, fire swept through the heart of Chicago, then a rapidly expanding city in the American Midwest. Driven by strong winds through a city built largely of wood and parched by drought, it destroyed some 17,500 buildings over more than 2,000 acres, killed perhaps 300 people and left around 90,000 to 100,000 homeless. Chicago rebuilt with remarkable speed and under stricter building rules.

Chicago in 1871 had roughly 324,000 inhabitants. More than two-thirds of its buildings were made entirely of wood, many with tar or shingle roofs, and its pavements and many of its streets were wooden too. Barely an inch of rain had fallen between early July and the start of the fire, and the city's fire department, with 185 men and 17 horse-drawn steam engines, was worn out from a week of smaller fires.

The fire broke out at about 8.30 p.m. on 8 October in or near a barn belonging to the O'Leary family on DeKoven Street, on the city's southwest side. A watchman's mistake sent the first engines to the wrong place, and an alarm from near the scene failed to register, so the blaze had time to take hold before firefighters arrived.

Firefighters hoped the South Branch of the Chicago River would stop the flames, but its banks were lined with lumber yards, coal yards and warehouses. Around midnight burning debris carried across the water, and the fire raced into the business district. Mayor Roswell B. Mason appealed to neighbouring towns for help and released prisoners from the courthouse basement before its cupola fell at 2.30 a.m. Fire whirls then lifted embers over the main river into the North Side. When the roof of the waterworks caught fire and the building was lost, the mains ran dry and the city could no longer fight back. Rain began late on 9 October, by which time the fire was already burning itself out.

The burnt area stretched about four miles long and three-quarters of a mile wide. Some 73 miles of streets, 2,000 lampposts and property worth $222 million, about a third of the city's total value, were destroyed. Only 120 bodies were recovered; the coroner believed an exact death toll was impossible. Mayor Mason placed the city under the temporary control of General Philip Sheridan, whose troops and volunteers patrolled the streets for two weeks. Money, food and clothing arrived from across the country and abroad, and a gift of more than 8,000 books from the United Kingdom helped found the Chicago Public Library in 1872.

The cause has never been established. A newspaper story soon blamed Catherine O'Leary's cow for kicking over a lantern, a tale that fed on prejudice against poor Irish Catholic immigrants. The reporter Michael Ahern admitted in 1893 that he had invented it, and in 1997 the city council formally cleared the O'Learys. Other theories blame a neighbour, Daniel Sullivan, or a group of gamblers in the barn; none has won general acceptance.

Lumber for rebuilding arrived the day the last fire was put out. Insurers and reformers pushed through new fire codes, and Chicago developed one of the country's leading fire services. Within 22 years the city was hosting the World's Columbian Exposition, which drew more than 21 million visitors. On the same day as the Chicago fire, the much deadlier Peshtigo Fire in Wisconsin killed between 1,200 and 2,500 people. Fifteen years later, the rebuilt city was the scene of the Haymarket affair.

Our 1878 map shows the United States a few years after the fire, with Illinois among its states.