The story of just how Chicago proved herself a veritable Phoenix is a very interesting one.
On the evening of October ninth, only twenty-four hours after the commencement of the conflagration, a car-load of provisions arrived from Milwaukee. By the next morning fifty car-loads had come to the afflicted city. Donations of food and clothing kept pouring in until Chicago was fairly sated. By October eleventh every person had food enough and each one's pressing physical necessities were attended to. On the eleventh, also, the Board of Trade met and resolved to require the honoring of all contracts. On the twelfth the bankers met and resolved to pay all depositors in full. The State sent an instalment of $3,000,000 with which it then voted to re-imburse the city for its expenditures for the canal enlargement, thus placing the city in the possession of much-needed funds. From all over the civilized world came contributions in money for the resurrected city. The amount so received within three months after the conflagration being about $4,200,000.
The Relief Society alone built four thousand houses within five weeks of those dreadful days when all seemed lost.
In two years after the fire, sixty-nine million, four hundred and sixty-two thousand dollars were expended in erecting buildings of brick, iron, and stone, while miles of humble frame houses were built, each costing from $500 to $10,000.
Now, in place of the original city of wood, there stands by the Great Lake, a city of stone and iron, able to vie with any other city in growth, enterprise and wealth, bearing the distinction of being the greatest grain and lumber market in the world, and boasting a population, at the time of my journey, of about five hundred thousand. From the Atlantic to the Pacific I rode into no city that made such an impression of grandeur, business power and wealth as this youthful "Queen of the Lakes."
Chicago's baptism of fire seemed but to prove an inspiration, goading the city to more activity, to greater success.
The aggregate amount of business done in the city the year after the fire—entirely excepting the building trades—greatly exceeds that done the previous year, as the following figures will show. During this one year the wholesale merchandise trade increased fifteen per cent. Receipts of grain increased 8,425,885 bushels; receipts of live-stock by 872,866 head. Deposits in the city banks increased $1,910,000.
So much for the splendid pluck of Chicago.
The Pacific coast has Chicago for her smelting furnace, four large silver mills being located here.