Image: The Currier & Ives lithograph shows people fleeing across the Randolph Street Bridge. Thousands of people literally ran for their lives before the flames, unleashing remarkable scenes of terror and dislocation. “The whole earth, or all we saw of it, was a lurid yellowish red,” wrote one survivor. “Everywhere dust, smoke, flames, heat, thunder of falling walls, crackle of fire, hissing of water, panting of engines, shouts, braying of trumpets, roar of wind, confusion, and uproar.” (Public Domain.)

On this day in history, October 8, 1871, in the Chicago barn of Patrick and Catherine O’Leary, sparks ignite to begin a two-day fire that kills 300 people, destroys 17,450 structures, leaves 100,000 people homeless, and causes over $200 million (in 1871 dollars; roughly $4 billion in today’s dollars) in destruction.

Folklore maintains that a cow knocked over a kerosene lamp in the O’Leary barn and began the inferno. Still, others speculate that people or even a comet may have been the cause of the fire that devastated four square miles of Chicago, including its business district. Arid weather and plenty of wooden buildings, streets, and sidewalks made Chicago susceptible to flames. The city typically saw at least two fires per day in 1870; there were 20 fires in Chicago during the seven days before the Great Fire of 1871.

The Great Chicago Fire devastated a major American city, making it one of the most damaging calamities of the late 1800s. A Sunday night inferno in a barn rapidly spread, and for 30 hours, the flames bellowed over Chicago, consuming shoddily built areas housing immigrants and the city’s business district.

From the night of October 8, 1871, until Tuesday, October 10, 1871, Chicago was virtually powerless to stop the massive fire. Thousands of homes, department stores, hotels, newspapers, and government offices were reduced to rubble. Over 300 people died.

The origin of the fire has always been debated. Locally it is said that Mrs. O’Leary’s cow started the inferno by kicking over an oil lamp, and this is most certainly false. But the legend has fused in the public mind and still holds firm.

The fire started in O’Leary’s barn (the cow was not the guilty party), and the flames, stirred by powerful winds, quickly spread throughout the city. The summer of 1871 was intensely hot, and Chicago lived under drought conditions. From early July to the outbreak of the fire in October, less than three inches of rain fell on the city. The heat and absence of rainfall made the city unstable, as Chicago was almost entirely constructed of wood.

Construction regulations and fire codes were generally disregarded. Vast portions of the city sheltered poor immigrants in poorly assembled huts, and even the homes of more affluent citizens were usually made of wood.

A large city practically made of wood drying out in a lingering drought aroused worries at the time. A month before the fire, the city’s largest newspaper, the Chicago Tribune, slammed the city for being constructed of “firetraps,” including many buildings that were “all sham and shingles.”

Part of the trouble was that Chicago had developed rapidly and had yet to experience any history of fires. New York City, for example, which had suffered its great fire in 1835, had become knowledgeable about administering fire and building codes.

At the time of the great fire, there was substantial uncertainty in dispatching additional fire companies, and significant time was lost. The fire at the O’Leary barn could have been suppressed if the first company acting had not been wearied from fighting a fire the previous evening or if other companies had been sent to the accurate site.

Within thirty minutes of the first news of a fire at O’Leary’s barn, the fire had spread to neighboring barns and huts and subsequently to a church hastily consumed by fire. At that point, there was no hope of limiting the firestorm, and the flames began their damaging movement toward Chicago.

The circumstances were excellent for the fire to reach beyond the immediate neighborhood of O’Leary’s barn. The fire quickly spread to furniture factories and grain storage elevators, and soon the blaze began to destroy everything in its way.

Fire companies struggled to control the fire, but the fight was over when the city’s waterworks were destroyed. The only reaction left was to flee the fire; thousands of Chicago’s citizens did so. Estimates state that a quarter of the city’s 330,000 residents fled, taking what they could out of fear.

A gigantic wall of flame 100 feet high progressed through the city. Survivors told disturbing stories of great winds pushed by the fire-emitting embers so that it appeared to be raining fire.

By Monday morning, vast sections of Chicago were burned down. Wooden buildings had vanished into loads of ash. More substantial structures of brick or stone were scorched ruins.

The fire burned all through Monday. The blaze was finally ending when the rain began on Monday night, ending the last of the flames early on Tuesday.

The wall of flame destroyed the center of Chicago, measuring about a section four miles long by more than a mile wide.

The destruction of the city was virtually impossible to grasp. Practically every government building was destroyed, as were the newspapers, and hotels, as were most significant businesses.

There were reports that many valuable manuscripts, including letters by Abraham Lincoln, were consumed in the fire. And it is thought that original negatives of portraits of Lincoln taken by Chicago photographer Alexander Hesler also vanished.

Nearly 120 bodies were recovered, but it was projected that over 300 people would die. It’s believed that the extreme temperature of the fire utterly consumed many bodies.

The property ruined by the fire was estimated at $200 million. Over 17,000 buildings were destroyed, and over 100,000 citizens were left displaced.

News of the fire moved across the nation rapidly by telegraph, and within days newspaper artists and photographers came to Chicago, detailing the enormous scenes of devastation.

Relief efforts were started, and the U.S. Army took command of the city, putting it under martial law. People and towns in the nation contributed funds to the city’s restoration, and even President Ulysses S. Grant sent $1,000 from his personal assets to the relief work.

While the Great Chicago Fire was a major disaster in the 19^th century and a massive shock to the city, Chicago was rebuilt quickly. And with the reconstruction came better buildings and much more stringent fire codes. The hard lessons of Chicago’s devastation altered how other metropolises were managed.

And while the story of Mrs. O’Leary and her cow hangs on, the real causes were a long summer drought and a large city built of wood.

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