Chicago officially became a city in 1837, and continued to thrive along the banks of Lake Michigan, the Chicago River and the Des Plains River. Despite all the surrounding bodies of water, drought ensued in 1871, with only an inch of rain falling between July and October. Scores of livestock perished in the sparse fields and fires cropped up around the parched area. Late in the evening of October 8, Daniel "Peg Leg" Sullivan cried "Fire! Fire!" and pointed towards the barn behind the shanty of Patrick and Catherine O'Leary on De Koven Street. Sullivan, who was at the barn when the fire began, is cited by historians as having run around to another block before sounding the alarm, wanting to put distance between him and the scene of the fire, yet compelled to save his mother's cow which was stabled in the O'Leary's barn. The 30 mile per hour winds whipped the flames down the streets, spreading the blaze faster than the firefighters could attack it. The inferno raged for two days, killing over 250 people, leaving 100,000 homeless, and destroying three and a half square miles of Chicago. In the days that followed, Joseph Medill's Tribune printed an uplifting call to the locals, "In the midst of a calamity without parallel in the world's history…CHICAGO WILL RISE AGAIN". Although traditional folklore has blamed Mrs. O'Leary's cow for kicking over a lantern to start the Great Chicago Fire, as sung by Chicago school children in the 1896 classic ragtime tune "Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight," the Chicago City Council exonerated the O'Learys in 1997. Alderman Ed Burke called for the resolution, citing documentation that the blaze was set during a hot game of craps between one of the O'Leary's sons, Louis M. Cohn and "Peg Leg" Sullivan among others. Cohn, who would have been 18 at the time, went on to become a wealthy businessman, bequeathing a large estate to Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. Among the estate was Cohn's personal biography which stated, "He asserted that he and Mrs. O'Leary's son, in the company of several other boys, were shooting dice in the hayloft...by the light of a lantern, when one of the boys accidentally overturned (the lantern)...Mr. Cohn never denied that when the other boys fled, he stopped long enough to scoop up the money." Today, visitors wanting to glimpse the historic spot where the devestating inferno began on De Koven street will be tickled to find the Fire Academy instead.
This color coordinated collection of fashion fabrics was first featured in our Vogue Fabrics By Mail Summer 2010 catalog of swatches. Subscribe to receive home delivery of these catalogs every other month.
This color coordinated collection of fashion fabrics was first featured in our Vogue Fabrics By Mail Summer 2010 catalog of swatches. Subscribe to receive home delivery of these catalogs every other month.
