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 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 sections of the town. (1, p.19) 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 part of

3. Chicago Fire 1871. Http://www.acusd.edu/~dpuffer/chicago.html

town had stone and brick homes, but wooden interiors, wooden stables, and wooden storage buildings. (2, p.81) Chicago was built on marshland and every time it rained the city flooded, so to help this problem the roads were made out of wood and elevated above the waterline. The d!

It was Sunday October 8th about 8:45pm, when Daniel "Peg Leg" Sullivan went to visit the O'Learys' house only to find out they were asleep. So Sullivan walked across the street to Thomas White's house and sat down to lean against the fence. The wind was very strong that night and there was a party at the McLaughlins' to celebrate the arrival of a relative from Ireland. Sullivan decided to go home when he noticed a fire in the O'Learys' barn. He started shouting "FIRE!" as loud as he could and ran to the barn to save the five cows, horse, and calf inside. As he did, his peg leg got stuck in the floorboards. He hung onto the calf as they made their way out. (1, p.13, 14,15).

There were many stories about how the fire broke out, but no one really knows what happened. Some stories say that the O'Learys' cow kicked over a lantern in the stable, others say the O'Learys' intentionally started the fire. An anarchist group called the Societe Internatianale was blamed, and even a fire extinguisher salesman was accused because people say he was showing people how his product was useful. The editor of one paper said that a higher being was responsible and that God was balancing the acts done by the North to the South in the Civil War. No one is sure how the fire started, but the O'Learys were the scapegoats and got a lot of bad treatment after the fire. (1, p.126)

The fire could have very well been stopped sooner if there hadn't been so many errors and mistakes in the beginning. To start off Bruno Goll claimed later that after William Lee left he turned in the alarm and then a second alarm when another man came, but there wasn't an alarm received by the Courthouse. (1, p.26-27). The lookout on duty that night that struck Box 342 didn't realize until later that the alarm sent the fire trucks about a mile away from the O'Learys'. He asked his assistant to str

Some common words found in the essay are:
Allegheny Pittsburgh, William Lee, Chicago Fire, Chicago Records, Ireland Sullivan, Bruno Goll, Robert Williams, Civil War, Societe Internatianale, Thomas White's, fire 1871, chicago fire, chicago fire 1871, fire fighters, fire broke, box 342, fire 1, drought causing dry, fire people, left homeless, people left, strike box, assistant strike box, people left homeless,
Approximate Word count = 1501
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)