The Great Chicago Fire

On the night of October 8, 1871, a fire started on DeKoven Street in Chicago or somewhere nearby. By the time firefighters got it under control two days later, it had burned three and a half square miles of the city, destroyed over 17,000 structures, killed about 300 people, and left over 100,000 people homeless. Legend has it that the fire started when Mrs. Catherine O’Leary’s cow kicked over a lantern, but whether it was that, some men that were drinking and gambling in the barn, or some