Personal Experiences During the Chicago Fire[1]
On October 8th, 9th and 10th, 1871, a fire swept out of existence the entire business district of the City of Chicago, located mainly on the South Side, virtually the entire residence and business districts of the North Side, blocks of many handsome and comfortable residences on the South Side and a goodly number of homes and business buildings on the near West Side. Over two hundred people lost their lives, and of its three hundred thousand inhabitants one hundred thousand were rendered homeless, of whom I was one. The money loss was over two hundred million dollars. The land devastated covered an area of over two thousand acres.
I had been a resident of Chicago for sixteen months and in that time had made myself familiar with its business and residence districts and its topography. I lived, at the time of the fire, in a boarding house at 110 North Dearborn Street, now 548 North Dearborn Street, one door south of Ohio Street. I was a bookkeeper for the Western Union Telegraph Company at its main office which was located at the northwest corner of Washington and La Salle Streets. The building now situated there, known as the Merchants’ Building, excepting some recent interior improvements, is a replica of the one which was destroyed by the fire.
The summer of 1871 was an intensely hot one. No rain had fallen in the Lake region for about three months prior to October 8th. Great forest fires with large loss of life were taking place in the then heavily pine-forested regions of Central and Northern Michigan and Wisconsin. I recall our excitement on Saturday and Sunday, October 7th and 8th, on reading in the morning papers stories of the destruction of forests and villages, with the loss of many lives, about Sturgeon Bay and other places in Wisconsin and Michigan.
As is generally known, the residential portion of Chicago was almost wholly constructed of wood. Brick and limestone structures were largely confined to the South Side business district. South of that were many handsome residences with Joliet limestone fronts and brick side walls. Such was not the case on the North and West Sides where the common structures, by the mile, were the one-story basement frame cottages with outside front steps leading to the upper floor. It is needless to state that there were many handsome homes in the district north of Indiana Street (now Grand Avenue), east of Clark Street and south of North Avenue.
The streets, where paved, were generally so with the so-called Nicholson blocks, round pine blocks laid upon hemlocks planks and heavily tarred over with a surfacing of torpedo gravel which in a short time was either ground into the soft pine blocks or swept away by the wind and rains.
The sidewalks, except in the South Side business district, where limestone flags predominated, were entirely of pine or hemlock planking and many of the streets were raised on wooden supports from four to ten feet above the natural surface to meet the street grades which had by that much been raised above the natural surface. It can be seen what added fuel to a general fire was made by such construction of sidewalks and street pavements. The raised portions of the streets were sustained by heavy stone retaining walls on each side.
As there was little of grade uniformity in the sidewalks on some of the side streets, it was a real exercise to go up and down the steps from one lot to another between the walks respectively at street and surface grade. I recall that on the North side of Indiana Street, between Clark and Dearborn Streets, in a distance of about three hundred feet, pedestrians were forced to climb steps up and descend three times, the natural and street grades being over six feet apart. As the street was unpaved and impassable for foot passengers most of the time by reason of mud or deep dust, one was forced to stick to the walk. All this to accommodate the selfish interests of owners of abutting lots who refused to bring their walks to the street grade. Sprains, bruises and broken limbs were common, due to such irregularity of sidewalks, especially in wintertime.
Before midnight of Saturday, October seventh, our household of about thirty boarders was aroused by cries of “Fire!” The sky was red from a southwesterly blaze. A number of the young men, including myself, started for the scene of it and were stopped on the east side of the Madison Street bridge. From there we saw the destruction of the then Union Railroad Station, a frame structure, located on the East Side of Canal Street, opposite Monroe Street. South of Adams Street to Van Buren Street were located planing mills and lumber yards. The fire was fierce and spectacular with such material to feed upon, but there was no wind and the fire exhausted itself without crossing the South Branch of the river. That was the night before the beginning of the great fire. It brought directly home to us all the fire hazard the city was exposed to and little else was talked of on that Sunday. Everything was as dry as tinder from the long drouth and great summer heat.
Chicago had no Sunday theaters, and for amusement one had to resort to the German beer gardens or to the North Side Turner Hall, where good music was the rule afternoons and evenings. Therefore church attendance was much more general than it is now. I would say that Chicago was then a City of Churches. I attended many services in different churches and often found standing room at a premium on Sunday evenings.