Great Fire of 1871

People were awakened by the fire. Many left their homes with shawls and blankets around them. One of the few close-up illustrations depicts a family in anguish. People fleeing death spent the night among the cemetery dead near Lincoln Park, close to the Lake Michigan shore.

The Chicago Tribune was burned out of its building. Citizens, in a panic tried to flee over the Randolph Street Bridge.

There was a heartbreaking loss of life as entire families were unable to escape. A hundred thousand people who had enjoyed an unseasonably warm and beautiful Sunday were homeless by Sunday night.

Fleeing people thought they’d be safe in Lake Michigan. They weren’t. Some never came out of the water. James H. Goodsell, an eyewitness, describes the scene (on page 16) in his 1871 book, "History of the Great Chicago Fire":

The intense heat from the burning buildings, even the flames from them, reached the water, and even stretched out over it, and the flying men, women, and children, rushed into the lake till nothing but their heads appeared above the surface of the waters; but the fiery fiend was not satisfied. The hair was burned off the heads of many, while some never came out of the water alive. Many who stayed on the shore, where the space between the fire and water was a little wider, had the clothes burned from off their backs.

In addition to damaged lives, the people had to contend with a destroyed city. Many of the wooden buildings were gone or had to be demolished. Overwhelmed, the people could barely fathom their loss.