The Chicago Fire story has been told and retold so many times that there is nothing new to be said about it historically. Looking back over the publications of that day, however, one is reminded of the fact that after every great catastrophe people rush into print to record the event or their impressions of the scene, and the great fire of 1871 was no exception. Lurid as some of the books and magazines were, they are interesting today because they were written at the height of the writers’ emotions, and while the horror of the fire was still vivid in their memories. This article has been prepared from reference to several 1871 issues of Harper’s Weekly, and two books – "The Great Fires in Chicago and the West," by Rev. H. J. Goodspeed, and "History of the Great Conflagrations," by James W. Sheahan and George P. Upton.

When the citizens of Chicago awoke on the morning of October 8, 1871, there was nothing to warn them of the awful fate awaiting them; nothing to indicate their city was about to be turned into a shambles of death and destruction by fire. What kind of people, and how many of them, lived in Chicago at that time? ‘What was this city like seventy-five years ago? Why was the fire not stopped before it could do such appalling damage? Many of Chicago’s citizens were descendants of hardy pioneers, men and women of adventurous spirit who, tired of restraints in the older sections and pining for the freedom of the wild prairies, had come to this far west country and settled along the banks of Lake Michigan.

As to the city itself, a contemporary writer refers to it as a young giant, and points with pride to the fact that in 1871 it was the fourth city of the country, with a population of 334,000. "Chicago no longer lay deeply engulphed in water half the year," he continues. "Her citizens were not compelled to drink water pumped from the edge of the lake and half filled with little fish, or particles of earth and filth. Common schools, academies, colleges, seminaries, universities, societies for the encouragement of art, and science, and history; churches and missions for the extension of religion and morality; galleries, opera houses, theatres, libraries, and every luxury and appointment of modern times for the cultivation and entertainment of men, had here their best representatives."

More than a hundred passenger trains, with the same number of freight trains, were arriving and departing daily, while "full seventy-five vessels load and unload every day at our wharves." Chicago had a total assessed valuation for the municipal year 1870-1871 of $277,000,000, of which $224,000,000 was real and $53,000,000 personal, but this represented scarcely more than half the actual value. With parks, public squares, etc., the area of the city was around thirty-five square miles, or 22,400 acres. Dwellings numbered nearly 60,000, of which about 40,000 were wood.

Such was the background. Now for the fire itself: At 9:30 on Sunday night, October 8, a fire alarm sounded, but few people paid any attention, thinking it a revival of the big fire which had raged over an extended area the night before, with a property loss of $300,000. But this was no revival. It was a brand new fire, the cause of which has been laid by historians at the door of a woman, her cow and a kerosene lamp. Hear what Messrs. Sheahan and Upton say in their book, however. "We discovered that the fire had originated in a cowshed in the rear of a one-story frame building, on the northeast corner of DeKoven and Jefferson streets. The origin is a mystery. The story that an attempt to milk a cow by the light of a kerosene lamp had ended in the overturning of the lamp, and the rapid firing of the cowshed, is now known to be untrue." Unfortunately, these writers fail to say what did cause the fire.

To further exonerate Mrs. O’Leary we quote from the book by Goodspeed: "Reporters gave the world to understand that a woman named Scully had gone to milk her cow or tend a sick calf in her stable – a crazy wooden shanty filled with loose hay – bearing a candle or lamp in her hand. Stories varied as to these details, but all agreed that the light had been overturned, and that the building had on the instant burst into flames." The most striking peculiarity of the fire was its intense, devouring heat. It left nothing half burned, and nothing escaped it. Brick, stone and marble perished as speedily as wood. The fire swept straight through the city from southwest to northeast, cutting a path a mile wide; then, as if maddened at missing more of its prey, it turned back in its frenzy to face the fierce wind, mowing down whole districts in the very teeth of the gale – a gale which blew a perfect tornado, and in which no vessel could have lived on the lake.

Chicago was full of horses in 1871. They were used not only for the needs of a great city but also in the lumber business, and to haul sand from the lake and other materials for street filling. The heat, the flames and the ter-rible roar maddened them, and they rushed at full speed through the streets, forever returning as close to their old homes as the fire would permit. If the horses were numerous, the rats were more so. Wooden sidewalks protected them from dogs and men. When the sidewalks caught fire the rats were doomed, and it is safe to say that over five million rats perished in the fire.

Buildings supposed to be fireproof crumbled like charred paper. Red hot coals shot in all directions and, as the flames spread, the city was one vast sea of fire. Famous Booksellers’ Row, a row of five-story marble front buildings on State Street, was completely destroyed. An exploration of the ruins failed to discover anything more than a badly scorched single leaf from the Bible. It read: "How doth the city set solitary that was full of people… "More than a million books had been burned up in these immense stores. Crosby’s Opera House had been closed all summer for repairs and was to have reopened on the evening of the 9th. Eighty thousand dollars had been spent in new seating, upholstery, carpets, gilding, mirrors, etc. Two hours before the fire, the house was lit up so that its effect might be seen under gas light, and everyone pronounced it the most gorgeous auditorium in America.

John R. Chapin, special artist for Harper’s Weekly, wrote a letter to his paper to accompany his sketch of Chicago in flames. "I confess that I felt myself a second Nero as I sat down to make the sketch which I send herewith. In the presence of such a fearful calamity, surrounded by such scenes of misery and woe, nothing but the importance of preserving a record of the scene induced me to force my nervous system into a state sufficiently calm to jot down the scenes passing before me. Retiring to my room at the Sherman House on the night of the 8th I slept two or three hours, then rose and went to the window, and gazed upon a sheet of flame towering a hundred feet above the top of the hotel. As far as the eye could see toward the south the flames extended in one unbroken sheet, with a wall of fire advancing with terrible rapidity. I soon found myself on Randolph Street bridge – the point whence my sketch was taken. No language can convey any idea of the grandeur, the awful sublimity, of the scene. An elevator towering 150 feet in the air was now a living coal, sending up a sheet of flame and smoke a thousand feet high."

Hundreds of thousands of people carried their effects to the lake shore, but their last hopes of safety fled when Michigan Avenue, the last street east facing the lake, started to blaze in several places. How did Chicagoans react to this dreadful calamity? Listen to this: "One hundred thousand of our people have been rendered homeless, and men who were yesterday princes are today beggars. But there is no cowardly disposition to yield the battle. We have won one of the grandest conflicts known to history. Chicago may be beaten but it cannot be conquered. In a week, a month, or three months maybe, we shall be once more in line, shoulder to shoulder, and the world shall see us marching as cheerily and determinedly as though naught save victory had ever perched on our banners."

A citizens’ patrol was formed in every block. "Every man out at night without cause finds it a little inconvenient to give repeated accounts of himself, and this of itself is promotive of the domestic virtues. It is astonishing to see how simple and provincial Chicago has become. There are no pubs, no restaurants, no theatres, no libraries. There is no need of going out – if you do, a wall falls on you." Insurance claims against Fireman’s Fund amounted to $529,364.92, an enormous sum in those days, and although the entire capital was only $500,000 every loss was paid in full within sixty days. One of the company’s most prized possessions is a document, signed by Chicago policyholders, warmly praising the "fireproof" integrity of the eight-year-old Fireman’s Fund. Yes, Chicago is indeed one of the country’s great monuments to insurance.

[Fireman’s Fund Archives: 4-1-3-4-59, 0411]