THE GREAT CHICAGO FIRE

by Robert Cromie ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

That notorious heroine, Mrs. O'Leary's Cow, plays but a minor part in this excellent account of the holocaust she is supposed to have started. Mrs. O'Leary, who ran a milk-route on Chicago's West Gide, Side, had in fact five cows in her barn on De Koven Street on Sunday, October 8, 1871, but it is doubtful if any of them kicked over a lantern and set off Chicago's -- and perhaps America's -- most spectacular and costly conflagration; it is certain, however, that the fire did start in the O'Leary barn late that Sunday evening. Chicago that night was ripe for catastrophe. A great fire of the previous day, the worst to date, had exhausted the members of its well-equipped fire department; the city itself, dried to tinder by a long drought and built largely of wood -- houses, fences, barus, sidewalks, paving-blocks, privies -- was as inflammable as an unlit torch; when the fire in the O'Leary barn started a mix-up in alarms sent fire apparatus to the wrong place a 60-mile wind roaring off the prairies did the rest. Burning embers carried high in air by the wind spread the flames, which devoured bridges and mansions, sidewalks and streets, barns and hotels, the post office and the cour-house and everything else in the path; the intense heat crumpled buildings far from the fire itself. When at last, late Monday night, rain saved what was left of the city, an area a mile wide and four miles long was devastated, 100,000 people were homeless, 73 miles of streets and 17,500 buildings were destroyed. Suffering to some extent from lack of selectivity but well documented and exciting in content, this definitive account of the catastrophe is also a history of Chicago itself before the holocaust and a detailed record of methods of fire-fighting in use at the time. Sure to appeal to fire-buffs and addicts of tales of disaster, it should also be of interest to historians of fires in general and to students of American 18th century Mid-west history, and should be a valuable work of reference for manufacturers of fire-equipment and the personnel of city fire departments.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: McGraw Bill

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1958

Categories: NONFICTION