The Great Chicago Fire was one of the major news stories of the 19th century.
On October 8, 1871, a fire started in or near O’Leary’s barn in Chicago. The blaze, which began at about 9 p.m., quickly spread and destroyed much of the city.
The Weather Channel remembers the 1871 Chicago fire:
The Chicago Tribune reports on the Great Chicago Fire:
“During Sunday night, Monday, and Tuesday, this city has been swept by a conflagration which has no parallel in the annals of history, for the quantity of property destroyed, and the utter and almost irremediable ruin which it wrought.
A fire in a barn on the West Side was the insignificant cause of a conflagration which has swept out of existence hundreds of millions of property, has reduced to poverty thousands who, the day before, were in a state of opulence, has covered the prairies, now swept with the cold southwest wind, with thousands of homeless unfortunates, which has stripped 3,600 acres of buildings, which has destroyed public improvements that it has taken years of patient labor to build up, and which has set back 100 years the progress of the city, diminished her population, and crushed her resources.
But to a blow, no matter how terrible, Chicago will not succumb. Take as it is the season, general as the rule is, the spirit of her citizens has not given way, and before the smoke has cleared away, and the ruins are cold, they are beginning to plan for the future.”
The Chicago Historical Society and Northwestern University have compiled a collection of news related resources. Here is their report about the Chicago Evening Journal:
“Burned out of their downtown offices, Evening Journal editor Andrew Shuman and Tribune co-owner Joseph Medill (who would be elected mayor less than a month later) jointly hired a printer in the West Division in order to get their papers going again. According to Medill’s fire narrative, he upgraded the printer’s equipment, which the staffs of the two papers alternated in using. The Tribune, a morning paper, operated the presses at night, the Evening Journal, an evening paper, did so in the afternoon.
….The employees of the Evening Journal had done their best to rescue what they could from the fire. Reporter William Hutchinson remembered working desperately with others to save the paper’s files. They were able to get four buggies from the Sherman House stables, but no horses, so they hauled the load themselves, three men to a buggy, first north over the State Street bridge and then west across the North Branch of the river.
….The papers of the next several days were full of advertisements from businesses about provisional arrangements, as well as personals regarding lost property and, in some tragic cases, missing spouses and children.”
Many news reports were written about the fire. In November 1871 the famous American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted offered his perspective in an article for The Nation magazine.
“Besides the extent of the ruins, what is most remarkable is the completeness with which the fire did its work, as shown by the…extraordinary absence of smoke-stains…and…debris, except stone, brick and iron, bleached to an ashy pallor.
The distinguishing smell of the ruins is that of charred earth. In not more than a dozen cases have the four walls of any of the great blocks, or of any buildings, been left standing together. It is the exception to find even a single corner…holding together to a height of more than twenty feet.”
The first stories of the 1871 Chicago fire came in the form of newsprint. More than 140 years later interest in the fire continues, but the stories are now shared in a multimedia world.
So yes, there is an app for that (fire).