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after s r a e Y 0 5 1 Flameso: Fire of 1871 Chicagroeain hicag C t G e h t October 4-10
A fire that broke out in Patrick and Catherine O’Leary’s barn on October 8, 1871, destroyed nearly every building between what is now Roosevelt and Halsted on the south and Fullerton, the northern city limits at the time. Before rain extinguished it two days later, 1 in 3 (100,000) Chicagoans were homeless and 300 were dead. A police and fire board inquiry was inconclusive in deciding whether the cause was human error or a spark from a chimney. Nevertheless, the tale that Mrs. O’Leary had been milking a cow that kicked over a lantern and started the fire was “fake news” that played on ethnic stereotypes of the period and nativist fears about the city’s growing immigrant population. Recovery from the Fire exposed inequities between Old Settlers who had come from the East in the 1830s and 40s and newcomers like Irish, Germans and Swedish. Business bounced back because enough infrastructure remained: the Stockyards, most of the wharves and lumberyards on the Chicago River, 2 out of 3 grain elevators, railroad tracks that linked the city with both coasts, and, most of all, Chicago’s position as a trading and financial center. Downtown was rebuilt according to new fireproof codes that required brick and stone instead of wood. Immigrants couldn’t afford these more expensive materials, and protested that the codes hurt revival of their ethnic enclaves. They were ultimately forced to move to outlying areas. Because much of the land east of the Chicago River and north of Chicago Avenue was empty, relief cottages were built there. The land became a slum, occupied initially by Irish, Swedes, Germans, Dutch, Poles and Italians. It was later known as Little Sicily – and then Cabrini-Green.
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