Almost overnight the great city of Chicago was destroyed. Before the fire there was a

large drought causing everything to be dry and flammable, then a fire broke out in the

O'Leary's barn and spread throughout the city. Many attempts were made to put out the

fire but there were too many errors and problems in the beginning. After the fire many

people were left homeless and had to help build their city again.

Before the fire broke out on Sunday night, October 8, 1871 there had been a large

drought causing everything to be dry and extremely flammable. Many fires had been

breaking out in Chicago. Records show that in 1870 the fire fighters went to nearly 600

fires. On Saturday night there had been a large fire that destroyed about four blocks and

lasted for around 16 hours. Another reason why everything in Chicago was so flammable

was because almost the entire city was made out of wood. It was a lot worse in the

middle class and poor areas of the town. Just about every house was made out of wood.

Even buildings that claimed to be fire proof had wood roofs covered with tar. The richer

out of their territory and unhitched their wagons. As if this wasn't bad enough, many of

elevated above the waterline. The day the fire started there were over 55 miles of

but there wasn't an alarm received by the Courthouse. The lookout on duty that night

would be wet and unable to burn. While he was doing this, a steamer unplugged his hose

in the alarm because he said the fire truck had already gone past. So instead of arguing,

spreading throughout the neighborhood. William Lee, a neighbor a block away, saw the fire and ran to Bruno Goll's drugstore to turn in the fire alarm. Bruno Goll refused to turn

William Lee left he turned in the alarm and then a second alarm when another man came,

stable, others say the O'Learys' intentionally started the fire. An anarchist group called

O'Learys' barn. He started shouting "FIRE!" as loud as he could and ran to the barn to

It destroyed the entire city of Chicago and touched people in a way that would change

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1428
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)