While Chicago Burned
By Ann Patricia Duffy
When the fire brigade’s general alarm bells sounded on the night of October 8, 1871, most Chicagoans paid no special notice. The summer had been the hottest and driest of many seasons, and October had already seen several fires in the city.
That Sunday, however, a ferocious wind frustrated the exhausted firefighters’ efforts and propelled the flames across the city. By the time the fire died out on Tuesday morning, roughly 300 people were dead, 100,000 were homeless, and Chicago’s central business district was destroyed.
https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2016/10/07/while-chicago-burned/
