Chapter 1

Forty years before the Chicago fire, Chicago was a wet marshland. Only a few log cabins stood at the site of the future city. The cabins were on the banks of the Chicago River where it flowed into Lake Michigan.

Farmers began to settle on the Great Plains to the west. These farmers grew crops that would feed the people in the big cities in the east. Chicago was a perfect midway point between the Great Plains farmers and their markets in the east.

Chicago became the fastest growing city in the world. By the end of the Civil War, Chicago was the most important city for railroads, grain, and livestock. It also was a city of many parks and tall buildings. In the middle of downtown stood a large courthouse with a dome on top. The courthouse had a bell that could be heard from one side of the city to the other.

North of downtown was a new water-pumping station. The tower of the pumping station rose into the sky. Its design made the Water Tower look like a castle. By 1870, there were 300,000 people living in Chicago. Its beauty, its wealth, and its rapid growth surprised the world.

Slums were built outside of the downtown area. Houses in the slums had grown just as fast as Chicago had grown. The slums were home to all of the immigrants that had come to Chicago willing to work for low-paying jobs and in any housing they could afford just to be in America. More than half of Chicagos residents were foreign-born.

All of the houses in the slums were made of wood. Many of the houses had been hammered together in a few days. In 1871, Chicago had about 59,000 structures, including houses, hotels, department stores, factories, and churches. Seven out of eight of these buildings (almost 52,000) were made of wood. There also were 500 miles of sidewalks that were made of wood. These sidewalks were built to connect walkways between the houses. Below the sidewalks were wooden streets.

Fires were very common in Chicago, with as many as 2 fires a day in 1870. Chicago tried to help this problem by creating the nations most modern fire-detection system. There were 172 iron fire alarm boxes set up around the city. When a fire was discovered, a person opened a door on the box and pulled a lever. This sent a signal to the fire department and gave the exact location of the fire. To prevent false alarms, the boxes were locked and the keys were given to responsible citizens, such as storekeepers. In addition, men were posted as firewatchers on high roofs, including the bell tower of the courthouse building downtown.

Everyone knew that the wooden slums could easily go up in flames. The danger was worsened by the fact that there was a terrible drought in the Midwest in 1871, creating huge piles of dry leaves around wooden fences and houses. Many newspapers warned that a big fire could strike Chicago. The biggest warning came from a famous speaker named George Francis Train. Some people thought that he had the power to see into the future. The day before the fire started, Mr. Train made a speech in downtown Chicago. He said, This is the last public speech that will be given within these walls. A terrible tragedy will happen in the city of Chicago! I cannot say anymore.

The Great Chicago Fire started at the OLeary barn on October 8, 1871. It was a date Chicagoans would remember forever. It was hard to believe that one fire could destroy the whole city. Chicago had been lucky and its growth had been wonderful!

Dennis Sullivan, a Chicagoan, discovered the fire. He was on his way over to the OLeary house at 137 DeKoven Street. When he got there, Mr. Sullivan did not see any lights on inside the house. It was nine oclock on a Sunday evening. He thought that the OLearys may have gone to bed early.

He was ready to go home when he saw something out of the corner of his eye. A glow flickered behind the OLeary house. It came from the barn where Mrs. OLeary had six cows and a horse (and 3 tons of dry hay). Mr. Sullivan stepped closer. FIRE! The back of the OLeary barn was on fire.

Other people heard Mr. Sullivans screams. Then they saw orange flames coming from the side of the OLearys barn. Shouts were heard down the streets. Soon the neighborhood knew that there was a fire at the OLeary house. Children ran to see the fire. Many people thought it was just another fire. It had been a dry summer and many fires had broken out. No one realized that this fire would be different.

The small fire at the OLeary barn grew. It soon became a cloud of smoke that reaching into the night sky. Far away in downtown Chicago, a man in the watch tower saw the flames. The watch tower was on top of the courthouse which was the tallest building in the city. The mans job was to look out for fires. When he saw one, he would telegraph its location to the city firehouses.

Chapter 2
The man who was the lookout used a telegraph to click a message to the four firehouses. The lookout thought the flames were coming from the south side of the city. His telegraph message to the firehouse told them to go to the south side, but the fire lookout was wrong!

The flames were really coming from the southwest side of the city. This mistake made the firemen go a mile out of their way. It also gave the fire extra time to grow and become more dangerous. This was even more important in the 1800s because they used horse-drawn engines that were not fast and easy to transport.

The firemen of Chicago were so tired. The summer had been very dry. They did not have heavy rain for two months. Also, there had been 40 smaller fires all around the city of Chicago the week before. There were so many fires because the weather had been so dry. With all of these fires, the firemen did not have a chance to get enough sleep. Some firemen had not slept for two days!

The firemen arrived in the south side where they though the fire would be. They only found dark streets. They did not know that the fire lookout had sent them to the wrong place. Then, one fireman looked to the west. He pointed to the sky and all the firemen saw the sky glowing with red and orange colors. They turned their wagons around and headed to the fire.

At the same time, William Lee, who lived near the OLearys house on DeKoven Street, ran to Golls Drugstore to report the fire. The drugstore owner had the key to the fire-alarm box. He assured Lee that there was no need to pull the fire alarm lever because he had already seen the fire wagons going down the street - the same wagons that were headed to the wrong place. The fire-alarm lever where the actual fire burned was never pulled.

Because of these mistakes, the fire was not properly reported. It took almost forty-five minutes for the major units of the Chicago Fire Department to reach DeKoven street. By that time, the fire was already a raging inferno.

That night, a hot, dry wind was blowing from the land toward the lake. Because of the wind, the fire started to go to the heart of the city. All of the buildings were made of wood and they burned quickly. The fire jumped from one building to the next building. It burned the wooden sidewalks and the wooden streets. As the fire burned the buildings and the wood, it grew bigger and bigger.

People ran out of their houses with a few of their belongings. They wanted to cross the bridge and escape to downtown. They believed that the fire would not be able to cross the Chicago River. Also, many of the buildings in downtown were made of brick and the people thought that they would be safe there.

As the people ran, they heard the courthouse bell ringing. The bell was the citys fire alarm. The men in the watch tower rang it constantly. Most of the people were fast enough to keep ahead of the fire, but some people were not.

Soon all of Chicagos firemen were fighting the fire. There were not enough firemen. Chicago only had 250 firefighters and 17 fire engines. The fire raced toward downtown and the fire chief said that the fire was out of control by 10:30 pm. The fire had started only an hour and a half earlier.

The people in the north side saw the sky with an orange glow in the south. The people in the north thought that they were safe. The fire would have to burn up all of downtown before it got to them. A fire had never done that before and they thought it could never happen.

As the fire burned, thousands of people tried to cross the bridges over the Chicago River. Horses and wagons tried to push through the crowds of people. Everyone wanted to reach downtown Chicago and be safe.

The fire burned its way to the river. The river was as wide as half the length of a football field (about 50 yards). The fire and wind sent red hot cinders and ashes, described as red rain, onto the buildings on the other side. The ashes also caught the bridges on fire. In minutes, the fire had jumped the river and reached downtown!

When the fire came near the jail, 300 prisoners were released. They ran into the streets and some of them began looking for things to steal. They began to loot from stores when the police left the streets because of the fire. Many of the looters became victims by trying to carry too much loot. They had to leave their stolen goods or else they would have been overcome by the fire. Some thieves died when the fire reached the building where they were stealing.

In reality, the criminal acts that night in Chicago were few compared to the hundreds of heroic acts. People dropped their goods to carry injured strangers to safety. Men and women rushed into smoky buildings to rescue those who were trapped. The rich helped the poor and the poor helped the rich.

The fire continued to grow. The wall of fire was now 1,000 feet wide and 100 feet high. In some sections, it moved as fast as a man can run. Firefighters did not have much luck trying to stop the fire. Because of the strong winds, the water they tried to spray on the burning buildings blew backwards into their faces. Volunteers also tried to stop the fire by tearing down wooden fences and sheds that were in the fires path. Crews exploded buildings to create firebreaks, or gaps in the path of the flames. But nothing could stop the fires advance.

Chapter 3
Many famous buildings caught on fire. The courthouse building was one of the first to catch on fire. Firemen hosed water on the courthouse, but it did not stop the fire from destroying the building. People in the park by the courthouse decided to run. As flames attacked the courthouse, the great bell in the tower fell. It crashed through five floors to the basement. People said they could hear the bell ringing until it hit the bottom floor.

One by one, other famous buildings caught on fire. The Grand Pacific Hotel was destroyed. It had one of the first elevators that Chicagoans had ever seen. The owners of the Chicago Tribune had said their building was completely fireproof. It burned to the ground in a little more than an hour. Many of the buildings were sturdy, but the heat of the fire was too great. The buildings caught on fire anyway. Solid iron posts were melted down to half their size. The fire was so hot that it melted the iron wheels of railroad cards. It turned railroad tracks into long twisting snakes.

Many businessmen had lost all that they owned overnight, but one businessman made money because of the fire. John Drake owned the Tremont Hotel. When the fire started at his hotel, Mr. Drake abandoned his hotel. He walked east toward the lake to the new Avenue Hotel. He thought the fire might not spread as far east at the Avenue Hotel. He told the owner of the new hotel that he would buy it for $1,000, less than it was worth. The owner sold the hotel because he thought that it would be destroyed by the fire. The fire never reached that section of downtown Chicago. The Avenue Hotel remained undamaged. It is now the Drake Hotel and it is still standing today as one of Chicagos most popular hotels.

Chapter 4
On Monday, October 9, the day after the fire started, units of the United States Army arrived in Chicago. The army was planning to blow up a strip of buildings. They wanted to blast a land gap so wide that the fire could not cross it. They didnt have time! The fire spread too fast. The soldiers did not have time to set up their dynamite. Many people thought the fire was so big that it would have crossed any land gap that the dynamite made.

The monster fire spread across the main branch of the Chicago River. Then it spread to the North Side. People who lived on the north side of the city had more time to leave their homes. Many of them buried their valuables in their front yards.

Thousands of people fled toward the cool waters of Lake Michigan. They ended up at the park named after President Lincoln. Today, Lincoln Park is a very pretty park. It wasnt always pretty, though. When the fire started, an old cemetery still covered many acres of the park. City workers had been digging up the old graves so trees and flowers could be planted. The workers were moving the graves to a cemetery that was north of the city.

During the fire, many Chicagoans huddled next to each other in the newly dug-up graves. Many others ran into the lake and stood neck high in the water. People and animals bobbed like apples off the shores of Lake Michigan. Some reports said the heat set fire to the hair of people standing in the waters.

People huddled together in Lincoln Park to wait for something to stop the fire. The fire continued for many hours. People started to cry as they saw their city go up in flames. Many of the people, who had been injured, died as they waited for the fire to end.

Suddenly, one man standing in Lincoln Park began to shout that the Water Tower was still standing. He was pointed through the smoke. People began to look. They saw the Water Tower standing tall and proud. The sight of the tower filled the people with courage. It sent the message that Chicago will survive!

Finally, at ten oclock on Monday evening, it started to rain. The rain weakened the power of the monster fire. The rain was the answer to everyones prayers. The fire smoldered for the next two days. The last building destroyed was on Fullerton Street. The fire had spread from the South Side to the North Side, destroying everything in its path.

After the fire, investigations were started to find out how the fire began. Nothing new was learned. The only thing that people know for sure was that the fire started in the OLeary barn. No one will ever know the exact cause of the Chicago Fire.

A rumor spread across Chicago that Mrs. OLearys cow had accidentally knocked over a kerosene lamp, starting the Chicago fire. However, this was never proved. The story allowed people to blame the fire on the OLearys, Irish immigrants. These immigrants were not popular among wealthy Chicagoans in the late 1800s.

Chapter 5
In all, the Great Chicago Fire lasted thirty hours. The fire had killed many people and left many others without shelter, food, or clothing. Thousands of others were jobless. It was reported that 300 people died. About 18,000 buildings were destroyed and property damage was estimated at $200 million, a fortune in those days. Four miles of homes and other buildings had burned to the ground, but Chicago was not dead. After the fire, Chicagoans began to rebuild their city.

Many architects from all over the world came to Chicago. Buildings were built with new materials. The buildings were help up by steel instead of brick and they had more windows. Buildings soared eight, nine, and ten stories into the sky as the builders used newly developed elevators.

There is now a large bronze sculpture of a flame that is southwest of downtown Chicago. It is a symbol of the Great Fire of 1871. The sculpture stands at the spot where Mrs. OLearys barn once stood. The Chicago Fire Academy was built behind the sculpture. It is the building where todays beginning fire fighters are trained.

Another symbol of the Chicago Fire is found at the northern end of downtown. The Water Tower that survived the great fire continues to stand to the west of Lake Michigan, near the John Hancock building. It is the same building that defied the great fire. Thousands of Chicagoans saw the Water Tower through the smoke on that October day in 1871. The memory of the tower gave the people of Chicago the courage they needed to rebuild their city.