On this day in 1871, the most infamous fire in U.S. history was sparked in a barn in Chicago. It would go on to burn around a third of the city, destroying over 17,000 buildings across 3.5 square miles.
At that time, Chicago was growing at a near-incomprehensible pace. In 1850, the city had around 30,000 residents. Twenty years later, the population was ten times that amount, at just under 300,000.
The poorest, densest neighborhoods that formed during that period had cheaply constructed buildings made of wood. Fires were a perennial issue, and in 1871 were exacerbated by a drought. The night of Oct. 7 that year, firefighters had put out a major fire that had damaged their equipment and left them exhausted.
The next day, the fire was lit. To this day, we’re not sure how. Regardless, the fires laid waste to the city for two days before finally being extinguished by rainfall on Oct. 10, aided by the fact that all the wooden structures in the area had burned down as well as renewed firefighting efforts. In the end, 300 had died and 100,000 residents had been displaced.
Yet the fire couldn’t stop Chicago’s exponential growth. By 1880, the city’s residents numbered half a million, and many of the destroyed buildings were replaced by new, more impressive ones that housed department stores and offices.
For more on the Great Chicago Fire, check out these articles at the websites of National Geographic and the Encyclopedia Britannica.
