The Great Chicago Fire
Three Days in 1871 and the City That Followed
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This book examines how the fire spread from one block to the next, showing why the alarm system failed. It covers the O'Leary cow legend that many people still believe, even though historians have proven it false. The book also explains how relief workers organized to help the displaced residents.
The story continues with how Chicago rebuilt itself after the disaster. The fire led to new building codes and the development of steel-frame construction. This detailed account will interest anyone who wants to understand how a single event changed an entire city's future.
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The Great Chicago Fire began around 8:30 p.m. on October 8, 1871, when a lantern was knocked over by Daniel "Peg-Leg" Sullivan while he searched for beer in a barn owned by the O'Leary family. That small shed next to the barn was the first building destroyed. Although city officials never determined the exact cause of the blaze, the fire spread quickly due to a severe drought and strong southwest winds, and because the water pumping system had failed. The most widely known story blames Mrs. O'Leary's cow for knocking over the lantern, but others say men gambling inside the barn accidentally spilled a light. In 1997, the Chicago City Council formally exonerated Catherine O'Leary of any blame after research by historian Richard Bales.
The fire’s spread was fueled by Chicago’s heavy use of wood in construction, a style known as balloon frame. More than two-thirds of the city's buildings were built entirely of wood, with most homes and structures topped with tar or shingle roofs that burned easily. Even sidewalks and many roads were made of wood. Added to this vulnerability, the city had received only one inch of rain from July 4 to October 9, leaving it in severe drought. Strong southwest winds carried flying embers toward the city’s center, helping the fire grow rapidly.
In 1871, the Chicago Fire Department had 185 firefighters and just 17 horse-drawn steam pumpers to protect the whole city. When a small barn fire started, the initial response was quick, but a watchman named Mathias Schaffer made an error, sending the firefighters to the wrong location. An alarm from near the fire also failed to reach the courthouse where the watchmen were stationed. The firefighters were already exhausted from fighting many small fires and one big one during the week before. All of these problems together allowed the blaze to grow out of control.
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When firefighters reached DeKoven Street, the blaze had already leaped to nearby structures and was heading toward downtown. They had counted on the South Branch of the Chicago River and a section of land that had burned completely to serve as barriers. Yet along the riverbank lay lumber yards, warehouses, coal piles, boats, and bridges. As conditions worsened, the southwest wind grew stronger and temperatures climbed, igniting buildings from radiant heat and embers carried through the air. By midnight, burning debris crossed over the water and struck rooftops and the South Side Gas Works.
As the fire crossed the river and raced toward the city’s center, fear took hold. At that moment, Mayor Roswell B. Mason reached out to nearby towns for assistance. When the courthouse caught fire, he ordered it evacuated and the prisoners in the basement released. Early on the morning of the ninth, at about 2:30 a.m., the courthouse cupola gave way, sending the great bell crashing down. Some who heard it said the sound carried a mile away.
As the fire grew stronger, more buildings burned down, and one major reason was a fire whirl—a meteorological event where hot air rises and spins into cooler air, creating a tornado-like effect. These fire whirls likely sent burning debris flying high and far. Some of that debris landed on a railroad car filled with kerosene across the main branch of the Chicago River. The flames had crossed the river a second time and were now spreading rapidly across the north side of the city.
The fire moved fast, jumping the river and spreading from block to block, leaving firefighters struggling to keep up. Not long after, a burning piece of timber hit the roof of the city’s waterworks, igniting the building quickly. The interior caught fire within minutes, and the structure was lost. With it went the main water supply, leaving the city with no way to fight the flames. The Chicago Tribune reported that the roof caught fire early, forcing firefighters to pull back before the building collapsed. One account from a Western paper described a family trapped on the fourth floor of a building at the corner of Randolph and Market Streets. The father threw his wife and children to safety below before collapsing beside his wife as the flames closed in.
As evening fell on October 9, rain began to fall, though by then the fire was already losing strength. It had moved past the crowded parts of town and into quieter neighborhoods up north, leaving behind only ashes where people once lived.
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When the fire finally stopped, ashes were still burning hot, so it took days to assess damage. The fire destroyed about six square kilometers of the city—more than 2,000 acres—stretching four miles long and three-quarters of a mile wide. In all, more than seventeen thousand buildings were gone, along with over seventy-three miles of road, one hundred twenty miles of sidewalk, and two thousand lampposts. The total cost was about two hundred twenty-two million dollars, roughly a third of the city's value in 1871. On October 11th, U.S. Army Lieutenant General Philip H. Sheridan arrived to help. Mayor Roswell B. Mason issued a proclamation placing the city under Sheridan's control, saying, "The Preservation of the Good Order and Peace of the city is hereby intrusted to Lieut. General P.H. Sheridan, U.S. Army."
General Sheridan arrived with regular troops, militia, police, and the newly formed "First Regiment of Chicago Volunteers." Former Lieutenant-Governor William Bross, also part owner of the Tribune, recalled his relief at seeing Sheridan's forces: "Never did deeper emotions of joy overcome me. Thank God, those most dear to me and the city as well are safe." For two weeks, soldiers patrolled streets, guarded supply warehouses, and enforced rules. On October 24, troops were relieved and volunteers disbanded. About 90,000 people—nearly a third of Chicago's 1871 population—were left homeless. At least 120 bodies were recovered, though actual number may have reached 300. County coroner said impossible to know for sure since some victims drowned or burned completely, leaving no remains.
In the days after the fire, donations flooded into Chicago from across the nation and beyond. New York City gave $450,000 along with clothing and provisions; St. Louis contributed $300,000; London's Common Council donated 1,000 guineas and £7,000 in private support. From Greenock, Scotland, a local gathering raised £518 immediately. Cities like Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Buffalo each sent thousands of dollars, while Milwaukee and nearby towns shipped firefighting tools. Trains brought food, clothing, and books from across the continent. Mayor Mason appointed the Chicago Relief and Aid Society to oversee relief efforts. The city also struggled with price gouging, setting the cost of bread at 8¢ per loaf, and ordered saloons to close early for a week. Many residents lost everything, including personal documents and possessions, leaving them unable to regain their former lives. Tribune reports documented arson during the chaos—such as a man who set fire to the Jesuit Church on the West Side and a woman arrested for igniting a building on Burnside Street, who was later caught, stoned, and beaten to death.
After the Great Chicago Fire, A. H. Burgess of London offered an “English Book Donation” to help rebuild the city’s libraries, which had previously been private institutions with membership fees. In April 1872, the City Council passed an ordinance establishing the free Chicago Public Library, using more than 8,000 volumes from the United Kingdom. The fire also sparked broader questions about development in the United States. As Chicago expanded rapidly, some Americans reflected on industrialization, with certain religious voices suggesting the disaster was punishment for ignoring traditional morality. Others believed the real lesson was that cities needed better building practices. Frederick Law Olmsted noted that poor construction in Chicago was part of the problem.
Chicago had a weakness for "big things," and it liked to believe it was outbuilding New York. The city even used its house-tops for commercial advertising. The faults in both construction and design of its grand buildings were clearly numerous— their walls were thin and weighed down with coarse, excessive ornamentation. Olmsted thought that if brick walls had been used, along with disciplined firemen and police, the loss of life and property damage would have been far less.
The city began changing its fire codes right away, pushed by insurance leaders and reformers like Arthur C. Ducat, and soon built one of the nation’s strongest firefighting teams. Businessmen and landowners such as Gurdon Saltonstall Hubbard started rebuilding almost immediately. The first shipment of lumber arrived the very day the last burning building was put out. By the time of the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893, Chicago had grown into a city welcoming over twenty-one million visitors.
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When the fire started, people quickly began sharing guesses about what caused it. The most common story said it started in the O'Leary barn while Mrs. O'Leary was milking her cow. According to the tale, the cow knocked over a lantern—or sometimes an oil lamp—igniting the barn. The O'Learys said they were already in bed before the fire began, but the story of the cow spread through the city. Catherine O'Leary became a likely target because she was a poor Irish Catholic immigrant. Anti-Irish feelings ran deep in Chicago and across America during the second half of the 1800s. These tensions grew stronger as Irish people gained more political influence in the city.
The United States had long held distrustful views toward Catholics, a sentiment that dated back to the 17th century in England. In Chicago, this prejudice was directed at Irish Catholics like Mrs. O'Leary, who became the target of both anti-Catholic and anti-Irish bias. Even before the fire was out, a story circulated that her cow had knocked over a lantern, starting the blaze. The Chicago Tribune reported it shortly after, and by 1893, reporter Michael Ahern admitted the tale was made up. Still, the legend stuck. Though the O'Learys were never officially charged, the city council cleared their names—and the cow—in 1997.
Amateur historian Richard Bales claimed the Great Chicago Fire began when Daniel "Pegleg" Sullivan, who first reported it, set fire to hay in a barn while trying to steal milk. Part of Bales’s evidence came from Sullivan’s own testimony, given during a hearing before the Fire Department of Chicago on November 25, 1871. In that account, Sullivan said he noticed flames emerging from the barn’s side and crossed DeKoven Street to rescue the animals inside, including a cow owned by his mother. The Chicago Public Library rejected Bales’s theory on their website, but the city council remained unconvinced. After the O'Leary family was officially exonerated in 1997, the council decided Sullivan's actions should be re-examined.
Anthony DeBartolo cited two Chicago Tribune articles from 1997 and 1998 in which Louis M. Cohn claimed he started the fire during a craps game. Following Cohn’s death in 1942, his executors awarded $35,000 to Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. The gift was formally presented on September 28, 1944, and included a statement from Cohn asserting he had been at the fire's beginning. He said he was playing in the O'Learys’ barn with one of their sons and other neighborhood boys when Mrs. O'Leary came out around 9:00 to shoo them away. In the scramble, they knocked over a lantern, though Cohn claimed he stopped long enough to gather up the money. This version of events is not universally accepted.
An alternative theory about the start of the Great Chicago Fire was first raised in 1882 by Ignatius L. Donnelly in his book Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel. He suggested the fire began due to a meteor shower, specifically linking it to Biela’s Comet. That comet had broken apart in 1845 and hadn’t been seen since. In 2004, engineer and physicist Robert Wood presented new evidence at a conference, saying a fragment of the comet struck the Midwest. He pointed out that four large fires occurred on the same day, all along Lake Michigan’s shore. Witnesses described spontaneous ignitions, no smoke, “balls of fire” falling from the sky, and blue flames. Wood believed these reports pointed to methane from the comet as the cause.
The idea that a meteorite started the Great Chicago Fire hasn’t gained support in the scientific community, since meteorites don’t typically ignite fires and are cool when they hit the ground. For methane gas to create flammable conditions, its concentration must exceed five percent, which would also make it explosive—something unlikely to happen from a meteorite impact. Methane is lighter than air and doesn't gather near the surface; any pockets of it in open air quickly disperse. If a piece of an icy comet were to crash into Earth, it would most likely break apart in the atmosphere, resulting in an air burst similar to the Tunguska event.
The idea that Biela’s Comet caused the fire doesn’t fit the timeline, since the comet’s orbit didn’t cross Earth’s until 1872—after the disaster had already happened. At that time, a major meteor shower was seen in the sky. But the real reason the fires spread so quickly in late 1871 was a dry summer, which left the land ready to burn. When a cold front moved in that evening, strong winds fanned the flames. Ignition sources were everywhere, and the fire grew fast.
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On that scorching, bone-dry autumn day when the Great Chicago Fire raged, another devastating fire was burning just 250 miles to the north in Wisconsin. The Peshtigo Fire consumed the town of Peshtigo and a dozen surrounding villages, killing between 1,200 and 2,500 people and destroying about 1.5 million acres. It remains the deadliest fire in American history, yet it received little attention at the time. One of the first things to go up in flames were the telegraph lines to Green Bay, cutting off communication and leaving the area isolated as the blaze spread.
The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 wasn't an isolated event—other towns across Michigan were devastated too. To the east, across the lake, the town of Holland, Michigan, along with surrounding areas, was consumed by flames. Some 100 miles to the north, another community called Manistee also burned down in what came to be known as the Great Michigan Fire.
On the same day the Great Chicago Fire began, another fire started in Port Huron, Michigan, sweeping through that city and much of the Thumb region. A little more than a hundred miles south, Urbana, Illinois, also burned on October 9, 1871, with parts of its downtown destroyed. Then, just three days later, on October 12, Windsor, Ontario, went up in flames as well.
The town of Singapore, Michigan, helped rebuild Chicago after the fire, sending over much of the lumber needed for construction. But because so many trees were cut down to supply the materials, the land there became severely damaged. It turned into barren sand dunes, and eventually the town itself had to be abandoned.
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Overview
In the final days of September and early weeks of October 1871, a series of massive fires swept across the Midwestern United States. These conflagrations, known as the Great Fires of 1871, included the Great Chicago Fire, the Peshtigo Fire, and the Great Michigan Fire. The fires burned more than three million acres of land and claimed thousands of lives.
Background
The summer of 1871 brought an intense drought that left the Midwest parched. A report from the National Weather Service in Chicago said "leaves had started dropping as early as July." Only 134 mm of rain fell in the city, far below the usual more than 230 mm. Lansing, Michigan, received just 70% of its average rainfall, and Thunder Bay, Michigan, got only 64%. Then, in the first week of October, a strong low-pressure area moved in with a cold front, while high pressure sat over the eastern U.S. The result was powerful southwesterly winds across the region. These conditions, combined with tinder-dry weather, created the perfect environment for fires to spread.
Peshtigo Fire
The Peshtigo Fire happened on October 8, 1871, in Wisconsin, and it's counted among the deadliest fires ever recorded. It began with slash-and-burn practices and spread rapidly due to strong winds. An eyewitness, Peter Pernin, described the scene by saying, "When turning my gaze from the river I chanced to look either to the right or left, before me or upwards, I saw nothing but flames." The fire covered 6 counties and between 1.2 and 1.5 million acres. It killed between 1,200 and 1,500 people and destroyed 16 towns. In Peshtigo, only a brick kiln and one new wood house survived. Today, a museum and cemetery honor those who died in the disaster.
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Overview
The Chicago Fire Department, known as the CFD, is the full-service fire department for the city of Chicago, Illinois, and provides fire suppression, specialized rescue, hazardous materials response, and emergency medical services throughout the area. It’s the second-largest municipal fire department in the United States, after New York City’s FDNY, and one of the oldest major organized fire departments in the country. The department is led by Fire Commissioner Annette Nance-Holt, who is appointed by the mayor of Chicago and confirmed by the city council. She's assisted by a First Deputy Commissioner who oversees four bureaus: Operations, Fire Prevention, Administrative Services, and Logistics. The CFD responds to more than 800,000 emergency calls each year.
History
The first fire company in Chicago was called the Washington Volunteers, and it formed in 1832. Just a year later, in November 1833, the city passed its first fire regulation. That rule said stove pipes couldn’t go through roofs or walls unless they were protected by at least six inches of tin or iron. Breaking that law meant a five-dollar fine. Nearly thirty years later, in 1858, the volunteer fire department was shut down. On August 2 of that year, the city council created a new professional fire department with paid firefighters.
Bureaus
The Chicago Fire Department was organized into four distinct Bureaus: Operations, Administrative Services, Logistics, and Fire Prevention. Each of these Bureaus was led by a Deputy Fire Commissioner. All four Deputy Fire Commissioners reported to the 1st Deputy Fire Commissioner, who then reported directly to the Fire Commissioner himself. This structure created a clear chain of command within the department, ensuring that responsibilities were clearly defined and communication flowed efficiently from the top down.
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Overview
Chicago, located on Lake Michigan, is the third-largest city in the United States with 2.74 million people according to the 2020 census. The city was incorporated in 1837 and expanded rapidly through the nineteenth century. In 1871, a devastating fire destroyed many square miles and left over 100,000 homeless, but the population rebounded. It became known for innovations in urban planning and architecture, including the Chicago School, the City Beautiful movement, and the steel-framed skyscraper. Today, it's a global hub for finance, technology, transportation, and culture, home to the world's largest derivatives market and O'Hare International Airport, one of the busiest in the world. The city hosts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Institutions like the University of Chicago and Northwestern University are based there, along with the Barack Obama Presidential Center. Professional sports teams compete in all major leagues, and the city plays host to the Chicago Marathon.
Etymology and nicknames
The name Chicago comes from a French adaptation of a term used by the Miami–Illinois people, šikaakwa, which referred to a wild plant similar to onion or garlic—now known to botanists as Allium tricoccum. The first written reference to the area as “Checagou” appears in 1679, in a memoir by Robert de La Salle. Later, in 1688, Henri Joutel wrote about the place, noting that it was called Chicagou because of the abundance of this wild garlic. He described arriving at “the said place called ‘Chicagou’” and explained that the name came from the quantity of garlic growing in the forests nearby. Over time, Chicago has been known by several nicknames.
18th century: Potawatomi, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable
In the mid-18th century, the area that would become Chicago was home to the Potawatomi, who had succeeded the Miami, Sauk, and Meskwaki peoples in the region. The first permanent settler was a trader named Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, who established a settlement in the 1780s. Du Sable, of African descent and possibly born in Saint-Domingue, is widely known as the "Founder of Chicago." In 1795, after the United States won the Northwest Indian War, an area that would later be part of Chicago was ceded by Native tribes for use as a military post under the Treaty of Greenville.
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