The damaged post office and surrounding ruins, in the aftermath of the Great Chicago Fire.Archive Photos/Getty Images
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Rendering of people fleeing across the Randolph Street Bridge.Currier and Ives/Chicago Historical Society/Wikimedia Commons
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The ruins of the courthouse as seen from the Chicago Tribune building. Otto Herschan/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
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A rendering of the blaze.John R. Chapin/Wikimedia Commons
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One year after the Great Chicago Fire, some structures are being rebuilt.Joshua Smith/Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG/Getty Images
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The ruins of the court house. Archive Photos/Getty Images
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A billboard for the destroyed Globe Theatre, surrounded by rubble. Archive Photos/Getty Images
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Looking across the ruins of the Field, Leiter and Co. store toward the standing walls of the First National Bank at State and Washington Streets.Bettmann/Getty Images
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A man stands in the ruins of a stove warehouse. Archive Photos/Getty Images
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A man stands in front of the stone arch of the Second Presbyterian Church, through which can be seen the remains of the Chicago Tribune building and court house.W.E. Bowman/Lightfoot/Getty Images
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View from the interior of the Union Depot. Jex Bardwell/Chicago History Museum/Getty Images
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The southern limits of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, located at 330-332 Wabash near Congress, blown up by General Sheridan to halt the fire. Chicago History Museum/Getty Images
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The aftermath of the fire. Archive Photos/Getty Images
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Men stand and look at the ruins of buildings. Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG/Getty Images
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View of the ruins of the Chicago Historical Society's library building.G.N. Barnard/Chicago History Museum/Getty Images
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The rubble and broken buildings in the aftermath of the fire. Archive Photos/Getty Images
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Countless buildings lay in ruins.Archive Photos/Getty Images
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More than three square miles of the city burned during the Great Chicago Fire.Archive Photos/Getty Images
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View of the Marine Bank building as it was being rebuilt after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.Chicago History Museum/Getty Images
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Destroyed buildings dominate the cityscape in the aftermath.Wikimedia Commons
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The hollowed-out facade of a building destroyed in the fire.Archive Photos/Getty Images
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Drawing of the ruins of the city's business center looking southwest after the fire.Chicago History Museum/Getty Images
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A building left in ruins after the fire. Archive Photos/Getty Images
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State Street in the aftermath. Otto Herschan/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
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A view along a street of ruined buildings.Archive Photos/Getty Images
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The damaged Great Union Depot, viewed from north to south.Archive Photos/Getty Images
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Two boys sit on top of a partial stone wall in the wreckage of a burned-out building at Madison and Clark Streets, with the court house in the background.Hulton|Archive/Getty Images
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New buildings under construction just a few weeks after the catastrophic fire. Chicago History Museum/Getty Images
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Rubble lines the streets as mere shells of buildings dot the landscape.Bettmann/Getty Images
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An illustration of the blaze in progress.Wikimedia Commons
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Catherine O'Leary's cottage (which stood near the shed where the fire is said to have started) on DeKoven Street.Wikimedia Commons
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Drawing of the United States Marine Hospital as it burned during the Great Chicago Fire.Chicago History Museum/Getty Images
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View of the ruins of Trinity Church after the fire.Jex Bardwell/Chicago History Museum/Getty Images
The Great Chicago Fire Of 1871, When The Windy City Almost Burned Down
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The fire started on Sunday, October 8, 1871 and didn't stop until October 10. When it was over, as many as 300 people were dead and 100,000 were left homeless.
The blaze, which later became known as the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, is said to have started inside a barn that was located on DeKoven Street. A shed beside the barn was the first building that caught fire. From there, the flames quickly spread across the city.
Because, at the time, most of Chicago was made out of wood, the fire had every opportunity to spread and grow. To make matters worse, the city had seen practically no rainfall for four months prior, meaning that severe drought conditions were present at the time of the fire.
As unlucky as the situation was, it was about to get even worse. When the firefighters were first notified about the blaze, they were accidentally sent to the wrong place. Thus, by the time they actually reached DeKoven Street, the fire had spread so much that little could be done.
Soon, the fire had spread across the Chicago River, where it ravaged the waterworks building and left the city with no water supply.
On October 9, the city saw a glimmer of hope as it began to rain. But by that time the fire was dying out anyway — and most of the city had already been destroyed.
The fire died out completely the following morning and the city's inhabitants were shocked beyond belief when they first saw the extent of the damage that the fire had caused. Chicago was but a sad skeleton of its former self, with more than three square miles destroyed and hundreds dead. At least a third of the population was left homeless.
But nothing, not even a horrendous fire, could crush the spirits of Chicago's citizens. The October 11, 1871 edition of the Chicago Tribune contained a short albeit supremely optimistic article titled "CHEER UP" that stated:
"In the midst of calamity without parallel in the world's history, looking upon the ashes of thirty years' accumulations, the people of this once beautiful city have resolved that CHICAGO SHALL RISE AGAIN".
After Chicago did rebuild, the city reworked its fire standards, which eventually led to it developing one of the best firefighting forces in the country.
But when it was all said and done, to this day no one knows how exactly the fire started. Legend has it that it began when one Mrs. O'Leary, an Irish immigrant, was milking her cow. The animal supposedly kicked over a lantern and the rest is history.
Others blame a man named "Pegleg" who allegedly knocked over a gas lamp when he was stealing milk from Mrs. O'Leary's barn. Still others claim that the fire resulted from a meteor shower even though this theory has found no support in the scientific community.
Whatever its cause, experience the devastation of the Great Chicago Fire in the gallery above.
John Kuroski is the editorial director of All That's Interesting. He graduated from New York University with a degree in history, earning a place in the Phi Alpha Theta honor society for history students. An editor at All That's Interesting since 2015, his areas of interest include modern history and true crime.
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Martisiute, Laura. "The Great Chicago Fire Of 1871, When The Windy City Almost Burned Down." AllThatsInteresting.com, August 23, 2017, https://allthatsinteresting.com/great-chicago-fire. Accessed February 21, 2025.
