On October 8, 1871, the fire was sparked on the city’s West side. Many eyewitness accounts of the fire are readily available online, and they make for an absorbing read. We herewith offer a unique perspective on that event—that of our forebears, the editors of the 9th edition (the so-called scholar’s edition) of the Encyclopædia Britannica, published in 1878, seven years after the fire. What follows is only a part of the treatment of the fire, but it takes up about one-quarter of the CHICAGO article. The passage was keyed in without further editorial intervention.
[…]The total area burned was 2124 acres, or nearly 3⅓ square miles, about 4 miles in length, and from 1 to 1½ miles in width. The season had been excessively dry; the rainfall in Chicago for the summer had been only 28½ per cent of the average. There was a strong south-west wind, made a very sirocco by the heat, and taking irregular, fantastic, and uncontrollable offshoots and eddies, which spread the fire in all directions except west. The city fire department, though large and efficient, had been exhausted by an unusually extended fire the Saturday preceding, and the flames outran even their earliest efforts. Wooden buildings were scattered throughout the entire city, acting as brands to spread the conflagration. These were the main conditions of the fire. The total number of buildings destroyed was 17,450, and 98,860 people were rendered homeless; of the latter 250 perished in the flames or lost their lives from exposure. Thousands, flying before the flames, sought refuge in the lake, and remained standing in the water for hours as the only means of preservation against the intense heat and the shower of sparks and cinders. Among the buildings destroyed were the custom-houses, post-office, court-house, chamber of commerce, and nearly all the churches, railway stations, hotels, banks, theatres, newspaper offices, and buildings of a quasi-public character. It is estimated that 73 miles frontage of streets was burned over, most of which had been improved with wood block pavements; these were partially destroyed. The total loss has been estimated at $196,000,000,—of which $53,000,000 represented the value of the buildings destroyed, $58,710,000 the personal effects, and the remainder business stocks, produce, and manufactures of every description. On the losses there was an insurance of $88,634,122, of which about one-half was recovered. A vast system of relief was organized, which received the most generous aid from all parts of the world. The money contributions from the various States and from abroad were $4,996,782; of this England contributed nearly $500,000. These funds, which were over and above the contributions of food, clothing, and supplies, were made to last, under the careful and honest administration of a society of citizens, till the close of the year 1876. Out of them temporary homes were provided for nearly 40,000 people; barracks and shelter-houses were erected, workmen were supplied with tools, and women with sewing-machines; the sick were cared for and the dead buried; and the poorer classes of Chicago were probably never so comfortable as within two or three years after this fire. The work of rebuilding the city was accomplished with marvellous rapidity. Immediately after the fire the most sanguine persons predicted that it would require at least ten years to restore the buildings that had been destroyed. But within three years the city was provided with buildings equal in capacity, and of twofold value. The work was begun before the cinders were cold, and the population seemed to gain new ambition and new energy from the disaster. The “fire limits” were extended so as to exclude the erection of other than stone, brick, or iron buildings within a large area, and subsequently this prohibition was applied to the entire city. The result has been to make New Chicago the most beautiful city in America in its business centres. Within the first year after the fire, buildings had been erected or started covering a frontage of 51,619 feet, and costing, when finished, $40,133,600. That the work was not spasmodic is shown from the fact that, in the year 1874, the frontage of new buildings was 33,065 feet, and the cost $5,785,441; and in 1875 the frontage was 55,470 feet (about 10½ miles) and the cost $9,778,080. The materials used were mostly brick, a pure white sandstone known as Athens (Illinois) marble, a grey sandstone from Ohio and Michigan, and a brown sandstone from Lake Superior. The business and population continued to increase in spite of the disaster,—indeed the ratio of growth became larger. The solidity and permanence of this prosperity were confirmed during the American panic of 1873, when the Chicago banks alone, among those of all large cities, were not compelled to issue certificates of deposit, but continued steadily to pay out current funds. There were few mercantile failures, and the business of the year following the panic still showed an increase. This superior resistance to the general contraction has been attributed to Chicago’s position as the distributing point of the breadstuffs and provisions of the great North-West. The comparative value of Chicago real-estate is an interesting illustration of its rapid growth. An example case may be cited of one piece of ground in an outlying district which sold in 1868 for $50 an acre, and was resold in 1873 for $1500 an acre.[…]
