Chicago and the Great Conflagration

A broadly published account of Chicago’s Great Fire of 1871.

“Without a peer in her almost magical growth to what seemed to be an enduring prosperity, the city of Chicago experienced a catastrophe almost equally without a parallel in history, and the sad event awakened into active sympathy the whole civilized world…

 

The present volume is intended to supply the wide-spread popular desire to obtain full and accurate information, in permanent form, about Chicago in her prosperity and affliction. It contains a concise resume of her previous history; a statement of her condition just before the fire; a graphic account of the great conflagration; a description of the aspect of the city after the sad event; a history of the exertions made to aid the sufferers; with a review of the subsequent efforts made to rebuild the city ‘mid the ashes of its former greatness.” [Introduction]

The contents of Chicago and the Great Conflagration continue in the same breathless tone as its introduction. It uses a variety of illustrations of destruction, lurid descriptions, personal experiences, and dizzying tables of damage statistics to quantify and qualify the effects of the fire that swept through the city on October 8-10, 1871.

The volume also includes two views of the city (in 1820 and 1833) and a fold-out map of Chicago, highlighting the burnt area in light green. Accompanying text describes the area as “2,124 acres containing 17,450 buildings.”

Map and book by Elias Colbert and Everett Chamberlin. Published in Cincinnati by C.F. Vent in 1871.