The Great Chicago Fire of 1871
The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 was one of the largest disasters in American history. Practically 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 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
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 strike Box 319, but he refused saying it would only confuse the firefighters. Many of the firefighters were ready to go though when they saw the flames, but as soon as they heard the Box 342 ring they figured it was out of their territory and unhitched their wagons. (1, p.30-31) As if this wasn't bad enough, many of the fire fighters that finally got to the scene were exhausted from the fire on Saturday. They were also drunk after celebrating having put out the fire. (1, p.33-3! 2. A Short History of Chicago, by Robert Cromie. Copyright 1984. Lexikos Publishing. San Francisco, CA. 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). 4) At one point while fighting the fire one of the firefighters was told to spray the houses with water so they would be wet and unable to burn. While he was doing this, a steamer unplugged his hose from its water plug because the steamer worked better than the little hose cart. The steamer however, didn't continue spraying the houses but went somewhere else. At the same time another steamer stopped working temporarily, but was soon fixed by banging
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1501
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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