[HN Gopher] The City Which Would Not Be Cowed: The Great Chicago...
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The City Which Would Not Be Cowed: The Great Chicago Fire of 1871
Author : samclemens
Score : 17 points
Date : 2021-10-20 16:50 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (blogs.loc.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (blogs.loc.gov)
| cpound wrote:
| Thanks for posting this--a few weeks ago, I also read Robert
| Loerzel's article "The Great Chicago Fire, As Told By Those Who
| Lived Through It" in Chicago Magazine and found it riveting:
|
| https://www.chicagomag.com/chicago-magazine/october-2021/ins...
| cafard wrote:
| Somewhere or other Carl Sandburg repeats or invents a story of a
| Confederate general who happened to be in Chicago then, and
| telegraphed back to Atlanta "Chicago on fire, whole town burning,
| God be praised!"
| a9h74j wrote:
| In a later incident, because San Francisco had no cow to blame,
| they blamed their great fire on an Earthquake.
| [deleted]
| massysett wrote:
| The "American History Tellers" podcast did a great series on the
| Great Chicago Fire.
|
| https://wondery.com/shows/american-history-tellers/episode/5...
| OldHand2018 wrote:
| The Chicago Fire Department training academy occupies the site
| where Mrs. O'Leary's barn stood.
|
| Also, if you'd like a souvenir from the Great Chicago Fire, head
| over the 12th Street beach any time there a big storm out of the
| north. The south corner will have an accumulation of stuff washed
| up from the lake (which is where they pushed all the debris).
| Terra cotta, bricks, glass, porcelain, etc.
| Accujack wrote:
| I have an antique book printed just after the fire. It actually
| has a diagram of the barn showing the position of the lamp, the
| cow, and straw on the floor.
| vidanay wrote:
| I'm not sure that's all being washed up there. I think that
| might be the core of Northerly Island being exposed by erosion.
| OldHand2018 wrote:
| Hmm, you may be somewhat more correct.
|
| At lot (most?) of the fire debris went to fill in the space
| between the "lakefront" and the Illinois Central tracks.
|
| Northerly Island was built in the early 1920s, supposedly
| with a lot of fill from the downtown, near west and near
| south - where the fire raged. But you know that Northerly
| Island has been expanded many times! If you look at a
| satellite photo, you see a north-south straight line
| "barrier" in the pond? That's the sea-wall of the original
| Northerly Island - far to the west of the beach.
|
| So anyway, an awful lot of Grant Park - where the original
| fire landfill was dumped - is a green roof. Over the largest
| underground parking structure in North America... So when
| they excavated that, where did they dump it? Northerly Island
| was being expanded... Who knows?
|
| Some of the things I've found there definitely date back to
| the 1800s.
| 1cvmask wrote:
| Has resilience changed over time?
|
| The city recovered relatively quickly in 1871, but has still
| failed to completely recover from the 1968 riots:
|
| Following the riots, Chicago experienced a food shortage, and the
| city's needs were barely met by volunteers bringing food to the
| area. Results of the riots include the increase in pace of the
| area's ongoing deindustrialization and public and private
| disinvestment. Bulldozers moved in to clean up after the rioters,
| leaving behind vacant lots, many of which remain today.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Chicago_riots
| AlbertCory wrote:
| This is a bit of overgeneralization. "The city" was not
| experiencing a food shortage; the riot areas may well have
| been.
|
| As for the difference between 1871 and 1968: Chicago was a bit
| smaller back then.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Also, advances in rail, air travel, and shipping from Asia
| probably reduced the demand for rebuilding Chicago. And
| westward expansion of the US in general.
| robertheadley wrote:
| This headline should be appreciated.
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