Harper’s Weekly — October 28, 1871

< --Previous Up Next–>

These are the two articles that appeared in the October 28, 1871 issue of Harper’s Weekly, one of the finest and most popular illustrated magazines of the time. Although mostly accurate, there are two things that must be commented on. First, the article stressed “gale-like winds” that carried burning lumber to other buildings. The winds in actuality never exceeded thirty miles per hour and was not capable to carry heavy planks into the air. These gusts were actually “convection whirls”, or masses of super heated air rising from the flames and given a whirling motion by brushing against the cooler air surrounding them. These whirls were commonly known as “fire devils.”

Second, the suggestion that there were a number of people shot or hanged for looting or setting new fires, was greatly exaggerated. None of these actually took place and was just a rumor that spread throughout the city and reached the press.

CHICAGO IN ASHES.
It is difficult at a distance from the scene, to form a conception of the extent of the dire calamity which has befallen Chicago. For days the newspapers were filled with dreadful tidings of the fierce and swift progress of the flames, blown bv the winds of heaven from house to house; of terror-stricken men, women, and children flying from burning homes, and spreading out, a helpless, starving, half-naked~ multitude, on the open prairie; but, as a writer of the World has well remarked, “there is little to be said of such a calamity which the imagination of every reader can not build for himself upon the sImple statement that a great city has been swept away in a day. The catalogue of individual ruin is the Directory of Chicago. Let any man figure to himself to what he would endure if he were stripped not only of everything, that may make him conventionally “respectable” or eminent, but of the wherewilhul to supply the first conditions of physical existence—food and shelter—and all his neighbors stripped of all that could. alleviate his sufferings and he will form a notion, faint and far off indeed. but far truer than description, however ample. could give him, of what has befallen, and for many days to come will befall, myriads of men as capable as himself to suffer and to enjoy. ”

With the help of our artists, who were instantIy dispatched to Chicago wben the extent of the calamitv became known, we shall endeavor to lay before our readers an intelligible acconnt of this terrible conflagration, which in less than three days swept a great city almost out of existence.

The fire had an ignoble beginning. Late on Sunday evening, October 8, a woman went into a stable on Dekoven Street, near the river, on the west side, to milk a cow, carrying with her a kerosene lamp. This was kicked over by the cow, and the burning lluid scattered among the hay and straw. A single fire-extinguisher on the premises, or. Ihe immediate application of water, would have confined the flames to the quarter where the fire began; but the engines were waited for, and when they arrived tbe firemen, stupefied by their exposnre and exertions at a large fire the previous night, worked with less than their usuol readiness and skill. The flames soon obtained headway. A high wind fanned them into fury, and they became uncontrollable. They sprang from house to house and from square to square, until the district burned over the day before was reached. In the other direction Ihe flames crossed the river north of Twelfth Street to the south side, and threatened Ihe business portion of the city.

harper

‘The full extent of the danger was tben for the first time realized; Ihe firemen, already worn out and exhausted, worked like heroes, and the Mayor and other officials bestirred themselves to take measures for the protection of the city. But the opportunity was lost. The time when thorough organization could have blown up buildings, or prepared for the emergency, had been allowed to pass, and it was now a fight for life. The wind blowing a stiff gale bad possession of the flames and the beauliful buildings, Chicago’s glory, lay before tbem. Harrison, Van Buren, Adams, Monroe, and Madison streets were soon reached, the intervening blocks from the river to Dearborn Street, on the east, being consumed; and within an incredibly short pace of time nearly a mile of brick blocks was consumed, as if by magic.

It being Suuday evening, this part of the city was nearly deserted. Proprietors and employes were at home, utterly unconscious of what was taking place. Those who saw the light of this fire supposed it was the remains of the Saturday night’s fire, and, having confidence in the Fire Department, were unconcerned; but between eleven and twelve o’clock a rumor got abroad that tbe fire was in the business portion of the city. Then every body was on tbe alert, and from the southern pari of Ihe city a stream of people poured toward the scene of the conflagration. By this. time nearly all the public buildings were either consumed or in flames. ‘l’he air was filled with burning brands, which; carried north and east by the wind, kindled new fires wherever they fell. The lire-engines were powerless. The streams of water appeared to dry up tbe moment they touched Ihe flames. An attempt was made to blow up the buildings; but this availed little, as the high wind carried the flaming brands far across Ihe space thus cleared away.

opera

To add to the horrors of the scene, the wooden pavements took fire, driving the firemen from stations where their efforts might have beeu continued for many precious minutes. Nothing could long resist the terrible heat of the flames. They seemed to strike right through the most solid walls. Buildings supposed to be fire-proof burned like tinder, ond crumbled to pieces like charred paper. Block after block was consumed, the red-hot coal shot higher and bigher, and the flames spread further and further, until that part of the city lying north of Lake Street was a vast sea of fire. At one time the people were so hemmed in by the circle of flame thai thousands were in danger of perishing, and escaped only by a precipitate retreat. The hotels were hurriedly emptied. of their guests, who swarmed onto the streets with whatever Ihey could carry away. Those who could do so made their way to the yet unburned bridges, and escaped across the river, while others fled to the lake shore and found a safe line of retreat to the southern’ part of the city. This. It must be borne in mind was in the night-time, but the city and the country and lake for miles around were illuminated with a lurid light.

When morning dawned at length there was but one block of buildings lefl in what the day before had heen the most flourishing business part of the city. The magnificent Court-honse, the Board of Trade building, the Sherman House and other hotels, and hundreds of stores and offices, were in ruin. The Tribune block alone remained unharmed. A wide space had been burned around it, and its safety was supposed to be assured. A patrol of men, under Mr. Samuel Medill, swept off live coals and put out fires in the side walls; and another patrol, under the direction of the Hon. Joseph Medill, watched tbe roofs. Up to four o’clock in the morning, writes the correspondent of the World. the reporters had sent in detailed accounts of the fire.

opera

At five o’clock, the forms were sent down. In ten minutes the two eight-cylinders in the pressroom would have been throwing off the morning paper. Then the front basement was discovered to be on fire. The plug on the corner was tapped, but there was no water. The conflagration which had for some time been aging on the north side had destroyed the Water- works. Tbere was not a drop of wnter in the city. The pressmen were driven from their presses. The attaches of the office said goodby to the handsomest newspaper office in the Western country, and tearfully withdrew to a place of safety. In a very short time the office was enveloped in fire, and by ten o’clock the whole block was a mass of blackened ruins. McVickar’s fine theatre, the Crosby Opera House, which was to bave been reopened Monday evening, the office of the Pullman Car Company, the great Union Railroad Depot at the foot of Lake Street, all the banks, and muny of tbe finest churches in tbe city, bnd already been destroyed. It is reported that a number of prisoners confined in tbe basement of the Courthouse were burned to death.

By the destruction of the Water-works, on the north side of the river, early in the day, the efficiency of the Fire Departmenl was fatally impaired. It was impossible, owing to the smoke and fire, to get to the lake or river. So intense was the heat that the sluggish river seemed to boil, and clouds of steam rose from its surface to mingle witb the smoke from the flames.

Early in the forenoon of Monday it be more evident that notbing could save the city, and all the streets leading southward and we.twnrtl from the burning quarter were crowded with men, women, and children, all flying for life, and attempting to save something from the general wreck. The number is vaguely estimated at 75,000. Every sort of vehicle was pressed into service. With the selfishness wbich on such occasions comes uppermost in some natures, the truckmen charged enormous prices for transporting trunks, boxes, and packages, and turned a deaf ear to all who could nol pay the money down. Thousands of persons, inextricubly commingled with horses and vehicles, poor people of all colors and shades and of every nationality from Europe, China, and Africa-mlld with excitement, struggled with each other to get away. Many were trampled under foot. Men and women were loaded with bundles, to whose skirts children were clinging, half-dressed and barefooted, all seeking a place of safety. Hours afterward tbese people might have been seen in vacant lots, or on the streets far out in the suburbs, stretched in the dust. These are the homeless and destitute, who now call on tbe rich world for food and clothing.

Many pitiful sights. were witnessed in the course of Ihis terrible scramble for life. There were mothers and fathers wbo, leaving children in places of supposed safety, had gone to save clothing and valuables. from their burning houses, and returned to find their little ones swept away, and were seeking tbem in vain among the maddened crowd. There were men and women whom terror had made insane. An eye-witness tells of one poor woman of middle age, bending under a heavy load of bundle, who strnggled through the
crowd singing the Mother Goose melody,

Among the saddest incidents of this calamity was the appearance in the streets of hundreds of men and boys in a state of beastly drunkenness. In the North Dhision the liquor saloons were broken open, and their contents flung into the streets, wbere they were eagerly seized upon by the maddened crowd, who seem to have felt the same impulse that leads sailors on a sinking ship to drown their terrors in the delirium of intoxication. There call be hardlv anv doubt that many of these poor wretches found their death in the tlames from which they were helpless to escape. Several hundred persons sougbt refuge on a barge, and were towed out into the lake where they remained all night. The loss of life can not yet he definitely ascertained, but will probably reach several hundred.

Thus the dreadful day wore on, and night drew near. The principal business portion of the city, and the North Division from the river to Lincoln Park, had been swept by the flames, comprising an area of more than five square miles. As the awful day drew to Its close, thousands of anxious eyes watched the clouds t)f .moke tbat hung over the scene of desolation, dreading lest a change of, wind !might drive the flames upon that portion of the clly whIch was still unburned, and fervent were the prayers for rain.

No pen can describe the horrors of the night. A hundred thousand people encamped in the fields and in Lincoln Park. The weather was tempestuous and cold. A heavy rain the day previous had drenched the turf, which the trampling feet of the thousands of fugitives from the fire had soon beaten into a morass. And then on, on the bleak prairie, shelterless and half naked, delicate women slept with their babes. clasped to their breasts, or moaned in unspeakable anguish throughout the dreadful night, longing for day and yet dreading its dawn. What hearts were broken during that awful watcb in cold and darkness and terror, what lives of lingering sickness and pain prepared can never be known. It would seem as if such dIstress might soften the most obdurate beart; yet even Ihere armed patrols were needed to guard the helpless from robbery and the baser passions of desperate ruffians, who, under cover of the general panic and disorganization, sought to inaugurate a new reign of terror. Houses were broken open and pillaged all over the town. Rape and arson and murder were not unfrequent; and It became necessary to form vigilante committees who promptly disposed of the culpnts by hanging ,or shooting. Fortunately General Sheridan was at his post. The city was placed under martial law and wretches cnught in the act of pillaging or setting fire to buildings—for, incredible as it may seem, men became incendiaries in the midst of the burning town—were executed on the spot. In some cases the citizens, maddened by the sight of pillage or arson, fell upon the miscreant and beat him to death. The number executed is estimatetl at about fifty. Among the ruffians so disposed or were four desperadoes well known to the police of every cily in the Union—BARNEY AARON, BILL TRACY, JIM MUNDAY; and JIM BROWN—as vile a set of scoundrels as ever picked a pocket or cut a throat.

During the whole of the uight of the !ltb the fire continued to burn on the north side; but the wind went down, and shortly after midnight rain commenced falling. and by daylight the flames were under control. Freed from anxiety in regard to the further spreading of the flames, the citizens took measures for the protection of property and for the care of the thousands “ho were homeless and shelterless. The first night few could be provided with shelter, and the most harrowing scenes were witnessed on every hand. Several children were born into the world in the midst of the storm, only to die. There were invalids of every age and condition of life, who had been taken from their beds and csrried where death came to them less swiftly but not less surely than in the fiery flood.

opera

In response to the cry for help that went up from the stricken city, instant and abundant relief was sent from every part of the Union. The general government sent thousands of tents and army rations. Socielies. and private citizens sent money, clothing, and provisions. Railroad companies dispatched special trains laden with these gifts. From Canada and from Europe came expressions of sympathy and proffers of assistance. Whereyer the news was carried it awakened the best impulses of human nature. But it must be borne in mind that more is wanted than temporary relief. Of the thousands of people who have been thrown out of employment and deprived of their bomes. just at the commencement of winter, many will require assistance for weeks and months to come, and this assistance must be afforded by the country at large.

The spirit and courage exhibited by the business people of Chicago is above all praise. The smoke still hung over their ruined city, when they met and resolved upon measures that would restore its fame and magnificence, nnd maintain its credit unimpaired. The newspapers. with their accustomed enterprise, immediately resumed publication as best they could, and generous assistance was afforded by the press of other cities, in the style of type, paper, etc. Temporary buildings were erected in every direction, and in less than a week after the cessation of tbe fire hundreds of houses were ready for occupation. ‘l’he spirit of prostration gave way to one of confidence and hope. every business man who could hire a shed resumed business. One hundred thousand doilars was subscribed toward rebuilding the Chamber of Commerce, and the work will be commenced at once. With this spirit animating her citizens, Chicago will soon recover from this great calamity, more magnificent and beautiful than she was before the fire.

ACCOUNT BY AN EYE-WITNESS

We have received the following intensely interesting and graphic account of the great fire from our special artist, Mr. JOHN R. CHAPIN (1827-1907), whose sketches are given on pages 1004 and 1018:

To the Editor of Harper’s Weekly:

I confess that I felt myself a second Nero as I sat down to make the sketch which I send herewith of the burning of Chicago. In the presence of such a fearful calamity, surrounded by such scenes of misery and woe, having within a brief hour barely escoped with my life from the burning hotel, knowing that under my eye human life was being destroyed, wealth swept away, and misery entailed upon untold thousands of my fellow-men, nothing but the importance of preserving a record of the scene induced me to force my nervous system into a state sufficiently calm to jot down the scenes passing before me.

No man can desclibe a battle so well as he who was far away from it. I shall not, therefore, pretend to give a description of any thing more than that which I witnessed; and I trust that I shall be forgiven in the use of the personal pronoun in view of the necessity of narrating my own experience In order’ to convey my impressions to others.

I arrived in Chicago for the first time on Saturday, the 7th inst., and stopped al the Sherman House. During the afternoon of that day a friend drove me around through the business portion of the city to show me the magnificent buildings, which covered Ihe area now a heap of ashes, Stopping here and there to admire the stately Court-house, the magnificent proportions of the Michigan Southern Railroad Depot, or the Grand Pacific Hotel, we passed into Wabash, Calumet, and other avenues skirting the lake to vIew the long row. of beautiful residences which wealth, culture, and refinement had erected on the edge of the lake, all of which are now embraced in an immense heap of brick, stone, and ashes. At the Tribune buildings we were shown through that immense structure—constructed in a manner precisely similar to your own building—that we might see how completely fire-proof it was. We visited the Board of Commerce, Western Union telegraph, and numerous other magnificent buildings, until, tired at last, we returned to the hotel to sop and talk of tbe wealth extent, rapid growlh, and enterprise of Chicago—that great city of tbe West, that fabulous city of yesterday.

An alarm of fire doring the evening caused no anxiety, for it was a thing of of frequent occurrence.. Yet the morning brought us intelligence that twenty acres in the southwestern part of the city had been swept as with the besom of destruction. We, togelher with thousands of others, went out in the afternoon to see the ruins. In the evening, returning from church with a young and dear frielld, we parted at the hotel door with a promise to meet on the morrow. In a few hours we were houseless wanderers, and did not meet again. Retiring to my room, I read until half past ten, and at that hour went to bed and to sleep. I had heard the alarm of fire nt ten o’clock; but, not withstanding a high wind—a gale. indeed—was blowing, I felt no uneasiness, but dropped off to slumber with a mind filled with engngements for the morning, which were never to be fulfilled. I had slept about two or three hours when I was awakened by a rattling of a key in my door, as though some one was trying to enter. Calling out “Who’s there? what do you want?” and receiving no answer, I again fell asleep, but wus again awakened by the sound of the tramping of feet nnd confusion in the hall, and by a dull roar, whicb I supposed was the sound of wheels on the Nicholson pavement. Listening for a few moments, and thinking it must be near morning, I composed myself to sleep again, but was restless, and my mind became gradually filled with a dread for which I could not account. At length, to assure myself, I rose and went the window, threw open the blinds, and gazed upon a sheet of flame towering one hundred feet above the top of the hotel, and upon a showel’ of sl,arks as copious as drops in a thunder-storm. Fortunately I did not loose my presence of mind, but packed my valise and dressed myself—hurriedly it is true—but saved even my watch under my pillow, and, leaving my room, rushed into a scene of dire confusion and dismay. The guests were hurrying through the hall, and dragging trunks and other baggage down the stairway., rushing frantically about, partially dressed and wild with excitement, every one intent upon himself, and all filled with that indescribable horror which can only be felt in gazing into tbe jaws of that terrible fire-fiend whose power is so grandly irresistible , and before whom individuality sinks to nothingness. Reaching tbe office, I went to tbe coat-room to obtain my overcoat; but finding. it closed, and thinking time too valuable to be wasted at such a moment, I left the building and hurried into the street. Hesitating but an instant to gaze into the face of the awful but sublime monster that was pursuing me, I turned and fled through the fiery shower—whither I knew not—but away from the fire. Coming to the liver, I recognized to the left of me the entrance to the tunnel on Washington Street, and hastened toward it. It was filled already with a crowd of fugitives, all flying with their backs and arms loaded with what tbey had gathered in tbe despair of the moment, seeking a place of safety. The scenes witnessed among this crowd were painful, and in many instances humorous and ludicrous in the extreme—or would have been under other circumstances. Helping now a poor mother who was struggling along with an infant and half a dozen older children, anon assisting an old woman staggering under her burden of household stuff, we at length reached tbe other side, and emerged into a place of safety.

Here for the first time I realized the magnitude of the danger nnd the awful nature of the calamity. As far as the eye could see toward the south the flames extended in one unbroken sheet, while they were advancing, a wall of fire from one to two hundred feet in height, with terrible rapidity. One glance was sufficient to convince the most hopeful that the city was doomed. A gale of wind was blowing from the southwest, and urging the fire onward over the wealthiest and handsomest portion of the place. No human power could stay its progress, and no effort was made. The alightest change of wind to the southward would have driven the sparks across to the west side, and, falling among the frame buildings of which that portion is mainly composed, would have cut off tbe escape of tens of thousands toward the prairie, Dripping with perspiration from my exertions, yet feeling the chill of the blast, I dared not stalled for a moment, but wandered from street to street, until I met a gentleman, his wife,nnd three children, who, like myself, had been driven out shelterless, who kindly directed me to the Mallory House where I was permitted to change my clothing; and now, more warmly clad, I started out to help, if I could, all that I could. I soon found myself on the Randolph Street Btrdge, the point whence my sketch was taken. No language which I can command will serve to convey any idea of the grandeur, the awful sublimity, of the scene. For nearly two miles to the right of me the flames and smoke were rising from the ruins and ashes of dwellings, warehouses, lumberyards, the immense gas-works; and the view in that direction was bounded by an elevator towering one hundred and fifty feet in the air, which had withstood the fire of the night before, but which was now a living coal, sending upward a sheet of flame and smoke a thousand feet high.

Following Ihe line of fire northward, the next prominent object was the Nevada Home, a large brick hotel of six or seven stories in height by about 100 square feet. For a long time this stood surrounded by fire, and it seemed likely to resist the attack of the flames; but soon a slight column of smoke climbed up the farther corner, a light tongue of flame followed, and in three minutes thereafter the whole structure was toppling to the ground. Before us we looked upon a sight which is impossible to describe. Every one knows how inadequate is human language to express the grandeur of Niagra—e can only feel it. And yet Niagra sinks into insignificance before that towering wall of whirling, seething, roaring flame, which swept on, on—devouring the most stately and massive stone buildings as though they had been the cardboard playthings of a child. Looking under the flame, we could see the buildings on either side of Randolph Street, whose beauty and magnificence and whose wealth of contents we had admired the day before, in the centre of the furnace. A moment and a flickering flame crept out of a window, another and another followed, a sheet of fire joined the whirling mass above, and they were gone. One after another they dissolved like snow on the mountain, until the fire reached the corner just before us. Loud detonations to the right and left of us, where buildings were being blown up, added to the falling of the walls and the roaring of the flames—the moaning of the wind, the shouting of the crowd, the shrill whistling of the tugs as they endeavored to remove the shipping out of the reach of danger—made up a frightened discord of sounds which will live in memory while life last. Vehicles of every kind and character were crossing and recrossing the bridge, bringing away goods of all kinds, and sometimes of the most ludicrous description. Fabulous prices were asked and paid for any thing on wheels. Wagons and carts without horse, but drawn by men, wheelbarrows, hand-carts, trucks, and every available means of transit, were called into requisition. One party had a platform store truck with three wheels, on which they had piled desks, chairs, cushions and office furniture to a height of six or eight feet. In trying to get off the track, the whole load slid off, and an immense express wagon, dashing along, went over the pile and crushed it into splinters. Here comes a steamer! Back rushes the crowd, and four splendid horses, followed by an engine, whose driver was either wild with excitement or crazy drunk, dashed across the bridge, and wheeling to the right, took up a position on the edge of the dock. Here they commenced dipping the water up in pails, which were sure to strike bottom side down, and when they diid get a pail full, in pulling it up it was sure to spill two-thirds; and thus they were trying to fill a wash-tub, out of which they took suction to get a stream on about two thousands tons of coal,. After working in this way with the energy of despair about an hour, some one called across the river. “Why in h-ll don’t you put your suction into the river?” They had apparently never thought of that. They dropped the hose and got a stream.

Crossing the bridge, we viewed the fire as it swept on, devouring warehouse after warehouse on Lake Street. One after another succumbed in rapid succession but the last one—the corner of which is seen to the left of the large building in the centre of the picture—and every body hoped and prayed it might be saved. But after the others on that front had fallen, it was seen to smoke near the cornice, and in a few moments—less time than it takes to write it—it was blazing from every window; after extending its fiery arms to and embracing the frame building of Sterns & Co., opposite, it, too, fell to earth, a shapeless mass of brick and stone. The large building in the centre is the only one saved in the space from the river to the lake, from two miles to the right of us to four miles to the left.

Across Lake Street the surging fire extends, and laps the cornices of the tall warehouses filled with wealth. The signs smoke, then blaze, and catch the window-frames, and in another moment the interior is a mass of fire, which rushes upward to join the mad whirl of the storm above. Now it has reached the river; and if the bridge can be saved, it can be confined to its present limits. Anxious eyes watch the bridge yonder. The crowd surge back and forth—and “Ah! there’s a stream! It will be saved!” A few moments of suspense, and some one says, “The elevator is on fire.” “No, that’s the reflection of the fire.” Every eye is turned that way with the utmost of anxiety. The smoke is so dense that we can hardly see. It blows aside, and what was the reflection of the fire is now a lurid glare of flame. It is doomed. Two, three minutes more, and its is a monstrous pyramid of flame and thick, black smoke, solid as stone. “My God! look there! there are men on the top.” “Wait a moment until the smoke clears away.” “Yes there are—three, five. They’re lost! See! they are suffocating. They have crept to the corner. O God! is there no help for them? What are they doing? They are drawing something up; tis a rope.” They fasten it; and just as the flames burst out around them the first one slides over the parapet and down, followed by one after another until the whole are saved, thank God! A universal cry of relief goes up from the crowd, and we turn to other points. On the north side of the flames, now having more digestible food than brick and stone, go leaping, dancing, and surging away over miles of territory, “growing by what they feed upon,” until, as far as the eye can see to the right and lefty, all is flame and smoke.

Let those of your readers who are familiar with New York imagine Broadway to be the river, and the East River to be the Lake; then imagine the whole of the city from the Battery to Grand Street to be in flames—one half of that space covered with such buildings as the Herald building, Times building, City Hall, and such blocks as Stewart’s, the Metropolitan and St. Nicholas hotels, all burning with such a blazes swept upward from Barnum’s Museum; add to this a gale of wind as severe as any you ever experience in the city—and they can form some faint conception of the scene which I have been attempting to describe, but to which no human language can do justice.

And who shall attempt to depict the scenes of misery, the agony of suffering, among the mass of people which was surging back and forth, to and fro, in every direction, an the west side? In every door-way were groups and families, on the curbs, in the gutters, every where—in the depots, in the stores, wherever there was shelter, and where there was none—they could be huddled around their little all that the flames had spared, with misery depicted on their countenances and with despair in their hearts. I leave these scenes to more powerful pens than mine, for I too had my load of painful anxiety to bear. Where was the young friend with whom I had parted the night before? He had been burned out and was homeless. ‘Twas in vain to seek him among those thousands: I might pass and repass him a hundred times in the crowds in the streets; and late in the afternoon, I was reluctantly compelled, for the sake of my family, who knew I had been stopping at the Sherman, to leave for some place whence I could telegraph of my safety. Seeking out the Indianapolis Depot, I purchased my ticket and awaited the opportunity to depart. Hour after hour passed in the presence of scenes of misery, the fire all the time spreading northward, until 7:25 P.M., we started away from the doomed city out on to the prairie. As we got away and looked back we could realize the extent of the territory, and I send you a sketch of the scene as it appeared from the windows of the train. Forty miles away we still saw the brilliant flames looming above the doomed city.

John R. Chapin.

fire

OUR ILLUSTRATIONS
Our illustrations this week, referred to in general terms in the preceding article, deserve special attention. That on page 1004 represents the terrible rush for life over Randolph-street Bridge, so graphically described in our correspondent’s letter. On the left of this picture will be noticed the incident of five men escaping from a burning roof by means of a rope. The double-page illustration will enable our readers to form some conception of the sombre desolation that hung over the city as the night of Monday drew on. Three of the illustrations on page 1013 show the general character of the buildings which have been swept away by the fire. They are drawn from photographs furnished through the courtesy of Messrs. Anthony, of this city. Probably no city in the Union possessed a greater number of elegant public and private buildings than Chicago; and of these only one, the residence of Mr. William B. Ogden, remains in the burned district. It owed its safety to its isolation in spacious open grounds. The pathetic sketch by Mr. Reimhart, printed on our front page, conveys a more graphic idea than can be expressed in words of the privations and sufferings endured by the multitudes who sought refuge in the parks and fields from the devastating flames.

ACCOUNT BY AN EYE-WITNESS

Leave a Reply