Great Fire of 1871

Patrick and Catherine O’Leary, with their five children, lived at 137 DeKoven Street (on Chicago’s southwest side near Halsted and 12th). Mrs. O’Leary’s five cows, which she depended on for her neighborhood milk business, were kept in the barn behind the O’Leary home. Literally overnight, Kate and her cow Daisy became infamous as the ignition source for Chicago’s business-leveling disaster.

Unlike today, when Daisy is the source of newspaper humor, contemporary writers weren’t kind to Kate or her cow. Most folks thought the cow did it. People still associate the Chicago fire with a kicked-over lantern in the O’Leary barn.

But consider these facts:

• In 1871, the Midwest had experienced a particularly dry summer and early fall. With drought conditions prevailing, brush fires had been the norm not the exception.
  
  
• Peshtigo, a Wisconsin town 260 miles north of Chicago, began to burn at precisely the same time (around 9 p.m.) as fire started to ravage Chicago. Twelve hundred people died and 1.2 million acres were incinerated.
  
  
• Across Lake Michigan, Holland was destroyed in two hours.
  
  
• Hungry flames also overwhelmed Manistee, fifty miles north of Holland.
  
  
• Portions of the entire central section of Michigan, from the shore of Lake Huron to the shore of Lake Michigan, were ablaze. About 200 people died there and 2 million acres were laid waste.
  
  
• All of these Sunday evening fires happened at about the same time.
  
  

Could it be that Daisy really didn’t do it?