by jim murphy - charles n scott middle schoolsch-sms.ss4.sharpschool.com/userfiles/servers... ·...

©2009 by Recorded Books, LLC133

Dr.JanetAllen

’sP

lug

ged

-into

No

nfictio

n

The Great Fireby Jim Murphy

Core Text Student Materials

Image ©Shutterstock Images, LLC

Text Connections


The Great Fire Text Connection

Snow image ©Shutterstock Images LLC/juliya; flame image ©Shutterstock Images LLC/Rzymu

Fire and IceRobert Frost (1874–1963)

SOME say the world will end in fire,Some say in ice.From what I’ve tasted of desireI hold with those who favor fire.But if it had to perish twice,I think I know enough of hateTo know that for destruction iceIs also greatAnd would suffice.

(From Harper’s Magazine, December 1920)from Bartleby.com

©2009 by Recorded Books, LLC 135

Text Connection The Great Fire

Continued on the following page.

By Anthony DeBartolo

CHICAGO - All we know for certain is the approximate time andplace: About 9 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 8, 1871, in or around a small shedthat bordered the alley behind 137 DeKoven St.

Everything else we’ve heard about the Chicago Fire’s origin—thecow, the comet, and most recently, Daniel “Peg Leg” Sullivan—is“interesting, but ultimately unprovable theory,” says Carl Smith, aNorthwestern University professor and expert on the Chicago Fire.

Ald. Edward M. Burke, though, seems so convinced Peg Leg did itthat last month he introduced a resolution in the City Council exon-erating Catherine O’Leary and her bovine of all blame. Monday, theCouncil’s Police and Fire Committee passed the resolution and sent itto the full Council for consideration.

The resolution was based on research by amateur historian DickBales, a Wheaton attorney. After comparing Peg Leg’s testimony(Sullivan told an investigative hearing convened after the holocaust thathe was the first on the fire scene) with land records, Bales theorizedSullivan, a neighbor of Mrs. O’Leary, lied about where he was standingwhen he initially saw the blaze. That’s led some to conclude he was inthe barn actually causing the trouble.

But before officially censuring Peg Leg, we should at least considerone other possible suspect: The only credible individual ever reputed tohave admitted, in effect, “I did it.” His name was Louis M. Cohn.

Although fire experts like Bales and Smith have never heard the name—and, says Bales, “I’ve read absolutely everything”—gambling histori-ans have. Because according to Cohn, the flames that left 300 peopledead and another 100,000 homeless and destroyed $192 million inproperty were sparked by the hottest craps game this town will ever see.

Cohn’s claim first surfaced Sept. 28, 1944 when his $35,000 estate,bequeathed in his name to Northwestern University’s Medill School ofJournalism, was ceremoniously handed over to Kenneth Olson, dean ofthe school. The university’s news service issued a one-page press releaseat the time.

In it, we learn that Cohn, a retired importer, “was regarded as anauthority in Chinese customs, political history and art” and “becameintimately acquainted with Chinese royalty.”

“A renowned traveler,” Cohn crossed the Pacific 42 times, theAtlantic 29 times, and “boasted of having been in every country in theworld at least twice.”

A less flattering boast is dispatched in the last paragraph, whichbegins: “Mr. Cohn had an interesting connection with the origin of theGreat Chicago Fire.”

“He steadfastly maintained that the traditional story of the cause ofthe fire—Mrs. O’Leary’s cow that kicked over a lantern—was untrue.He asserted that he and Mrs. O’Leary’s son, in the company of severalother boys, were shooting dice in the hayloft … by the light of alantern, when one of the boys accidently overturned the lantern, thussetting the barn afire. Mr. Cohn never denied that when the other boysfled, he stopped long enough to scoop up the money.”

According to his Cook County death certificate, Cohn would havebeen 18 years old at the time of the fire. He was born March 10, 1853in Breslau, Prussia (part of modern-day Germany), also the birthplaceof his unnamed father.

He died in 1942 a few weeks before his 89th birthday, succumbingin Passavant Hospital after a lengthy bout with kidney cancer. He sur-vived his wife, Bertha, by many years, had no children and was buriedin Rosehill Cemetery.

Mr. Solid CitizenIn his will, Cohn comes across as a solid, sensible, civic-minded cit-

izen, despite an apparent aversion to organized religions. Among hislast requests: “The obsequies to be performed over my remains be sim-ple yet dignified; that my remains be placed in a casket which shall beunostentatious and moderate in cost; that the services at my funeral beconducted by members of Chicago Lodge No. 4 the Benevolent andProtective Order of Elks, U.S.A. and that no religious services of anycharacter whatsoever be conducted …”

The Intriguing TimesOctober 8, 1997 Page A1

WHO CAUSED THE GREAT CHICAGO FIRE?A POSSIBLE DEATHBED CONFESSION

Article continued on the following page.



As the endowment indicates, Cohn died a relatively wealthy man.Court documents tell us he left behind $2,618.30 in cash; $4,753.91in personal property, and considerable equity in a seven-unit HydePark apartment building. He also owned several thousand shares ofworthless stock, primarily in speculative gold mines.

While Cohn requested perpetual scholarships be established in hisname, his will cited the University of Chicago and/or NorthwesternUniversity as possible beneficiaries. No single school or specific area ofstudy was selected.

His estate’s executors—Judge Michael Feinburg, Arthur Berg andMorris Neufeld, close friends of Cohn’s and also beneficiaries of his will—chose Medill. Administered as a need-based subsidy for Illinois jour-nalism students, the Louis M. Cohn Scholarship fund is still continu-ing to bestow grants. So far in 1997, it has doled out about $12,000 ininterest income, according to university sources.

In 1942, the day after Cohn’s will was admitted to probate, theTribune briefly acknowledged its scholarship provision. Two days later,the Sun-Times reported that the estate went to Medill, ending its two-paragraph story with this kicker: Cohn “claimed to have been presentin the barn of Mrs. O’Leary on the night of the Chicago Fire.” TheTribune, which essentially founded Medill 23 years earlier, made nomention of the gift or the fire.

A gambling storyCohn’s alleged involvement in the disaster was not publicly acknowl-

edged again until gambling historian Alan Wykes’ 1964 book, TheComplete Illustrated Guide to Gambling. In a chapter headed “SevenCome Eleven,” Wykes reports Cohn’s $35,000 gift to Northwestern,adding that the estate was handed over “together with the full story ofthe ‘truth’ about the Chicago Fire.” Wykes explains that Cohn’s allegedadmission is unverified, “but, true or not,” he writes, “it has taken itsplace in the colorful history of craps.”

In his retelling of Cohn’s claim, Wykes also significantly expandsupon it. “In his will,” the author writes, “Cohn added a postscript tohis story in the form of a deadpan comment that could have been madeonly by a man with the unswerving single-mindedness of the dedicat-ed gambler: ‘When I knocked over the lantern, I was winning.’ “

Attempts to reach Wykes through his London-based publisher,Aldus Books, Ltd., and New York’s Doubleday and Co., which handledthe American edition, were unsuccessful.

According to a contemporary university spokesperson, no addition-al records regarding Cohn’s bequest can be found. Dean Olson, whomight have shed some light, died in 1967.Cohn’s recorded nine-page will, signed five months before his death,

contains no reference to the fire. There is, however, reason to questionthe document’s authenticity.

It seems Cohn didn’t properly sign or date what was represented asthe will’s last page. Instead, he signed all nine pages in their margins,but didn’t affix his signature to the bottom of the final page to confirmthat the preceding pages contained all he had to say.

After briefly questioning the will’s witnesses, the probate judge in thecase, Judge John F. O’Connell, seemed satisfied by the will’s legitima-cy. In retrospect, perhaps he shouldn’t have been.

It is entirely possible that out of civic concerns, ethnic pride or asense of benevolent protectiveness, Cohn’s friends thought it best tokeep his reputed admission, true or not, as private as possible.

What is certain is the plausibility of Cohn’s alleged tale. It takes placeat a time when Chicago was not only the heartland’s seaport to theworld, but the most prominent gambling center this side of NewOrleans. Games of chance flourished, especially among the immigrantworking class.

One can, without a huge leap of imagination, place a youthful Cohnnear the scene of the crime. Chicago’s 1870 census registered 32 Cohnhouseholds. The male heads of three of them reported Prussia as theirbirthplace. All lived within walking distance of the O’Learys. One, acigarmaker who resided with another male and three females at 3431/2 Park Ave., was even named Louis.

As for Cohn’s claim that he was gambling with Mrs. O’Leary’s son,one immediately thinks of James, the youngest of her two boys. Basedupon church records, the lad would have been almost 9 years old.

James grew up to be “Big Jim” O’Leary, a notorious gambler andpioneer off-track betting operator. In his DuPage County OTB parlor,he took bets on races run at five tracks. His Long Beach, Indiana-basedOTB, meanwhile, had barbed wire, armed guards, vicious canines andsecret tunnels.

O’Leary’s largest city operation, a sportsbook and casino at 4183-85S. Halsted St., was near the Stock Yards’ main gate. As his 1925Tribune obituary noted, the “gambling resort was the best known placeof its kind in Chicago.”

After 126 years, with the trail ice cold and all witnesses long gone,we’ll surely never know the truth about the Great Fire’s origins. Butthose now convinced Peg Leg was involved should at least reconsiderwhat he was doing in the barn.

The odds may be that he was losing to Cohn.

© 1997 Hyde Park MediaUsed with permission.http://www.hydeparkmedia.com/cohn.htmlImage ©Shutterstock Images LLC/Nathan DeMarse

The Intriguing TimesOctober 8, 1997 Page A2

WHO CAUSED THE GREAT CHICAGO FIRE?Continued from previous page.



CHICAGOCarl Sandburg (1878–1967)

Chicago Poems 1916

HOG Butcher for the World,Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler;Stormy, husky, brawling,City of the Big Shoulders:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.

And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.

And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.

And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:

Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.

Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;

Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,

Bareheaded,Shoveling,Wrecking,Planning,Building, breaking, rebuilding,

Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,

Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,

Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,

Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse. and under his ribs the heart of the people,

Laughing!Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker ofWheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

from Bartleby.comImage ©Shutterstock Images LLC/Stephen Finn



Old Mother Leary(or “Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow” or “There’ll be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight”)

Original version; written by: Unknown, copyright unknown

Late one nightWhen we were all in bedOld Mother LearyLeft a lantern in the shed

And when the cow kicked it over,She winked her eye and said,“There’ll be a hot timeIn the old town, tonight.”

Spoken:“FIRE, FIRE, FIRE!”

[Expanded version, most familiar in Chicago:]

5 nights ago,when we were all in bedOld Mrs. Leary left the lantern in the shedand when the cow kicked it over,she winked her eye and saidit’ll be a hot time, in the old town, tonight!FIRE FIRE FIRE!



2 nights ago,when we were all in bedOld Mrs. Leary left the lantern in the shedand when the cow kicked it over,she winked her eye and saidit’ll be a hot time, in the old town, tonight!FIRE FIRE FIRE

1 night ago,when we were all in bedOld Mrs. Leary left the lantern in the shedand when the cow kicked it over,she winked her eye and saidit’ll be a hot time, in the old town, tonight!

FIRE FIRE FIRE!

Note -- other “rounds” can be concluded with:

* Water, Water, Water!* Jump, Lady, Jump!* Save My Child, Save My Child!

Listen to the tune at: http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/lyrics/leary.htmNIEHS Kids’ Pages are supported by the NIEHS Office of Communications and Public Liaison,PO Box 12233, NH-10, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina 27709. Telephone: (919) 541-3345.This page was last modified and reviewed for accessibility by the NIEHS Office of Management on 01/22/2008 14:22:32.Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).Office of Inspector General, DHHS



Did the Cow Do It?A New Look at the Cause of the Great Chicago Fireby Richard F. BalesThe Exoneration of Mrs. O’Leary

Even as the fire raged, Mrs. O’Leary and her bovine com-panion were being blamed for causing the fire thatdestroyed the heart of Chicago. This theory appears tohave had its origin in the October 9 issue of the ChicagoEvening Journal, which reported that “the fire broke outon the corner of DeKoven and Twelfth streets, atabout 9 o’clock on Sunday evening, beingcaused by a cow kicking over a lampin a stable in which a womanwas milking.”

Mrs. O’Leary steadfastlydenied causing the fire.Both she and her husbandstated at the inquiryinvestigation that theywere in bed at the timethe fire broke out.Nonetheless, the story ofthe cow and the lanternspread with the intensity ofthe fire itself. Countless booksand articles have been writtensince 1871, with many of them plac-ing blame for the Great Chicago Fire onthe weary shoulders of Mrs. Catherine O’Leary.

But those writers who maintain that she started the fire butthen later lied about it during the inquiry fail to take intoaccount the fact that under ordinary circumstances the blazeinitially could have been extinguished relatively easily andquickly. Unfortunately, because of an unlikely series ofevents, an ordinary barn fire was transformed into what FireMarshal Robert A. Williams called a “hurricane of fire andcinders.” These seven factors were:

1. The firemen were exhausted from fighting a fire thenight before at the Lull & Holmes planing mill, located onCanal Street on the city’s West Side. The fire had started at

about 11:00 on Saturday evening and firemen fought thefire all night and through Sunday afternoon. Many of themhad not eaten and had virtually no sleep before being calledout to the O’Leary barn.2. As a result of this Saturday night fire, the firemen’s

equipment, including the fire hose, was not in the best ofcondition. Furthermore, the hose that was available was inshort supply.3. Mathias Schafer was the fire department watchman

stationed in the cupola in the courthouse tower. His jobwas to scan the city for fires; upon sighting one, he would,via a voice tube, give the location of the fire to a telegraphoperator in the third floor central fire alarm telegraph

office. The operator would then strike theappropriate fire alarm box, whichwould ring the courthouse belland bells in the various firedepartment company houseslocated throughout thecity. On the evening ofOctober 8 Schafernoticed a light in thesouthwest. He calleddown to William J.Brown, the night opera-tor, and told him tostrike box 342, which waslocated on the corner ofCanalport Avenue and

Halsted Street, about one milesouthwest of the O’Leary barn.

Immediately thereafter, as Schaferexamined the growing blaze from his location

in the courthouse tower, he realized that he had made amistake. He called back down to Brown and asked him tostrike box 319, which was located at Johnson and Twelfthstreets, closer to the fire, but still seven and one-half blocksaway. Brown, though, refused to do so, stating that he“could not alter it now.” He believed that since box 342was in the line of the fire, the approaching firemen wouldsee the flames anyway, and he did not want to confuse thefiremen by striking a different alarm box. As a result,engine companies that would otherwise have immediatelyanswered the alarm were delayed. Many of the firemenlater maintained that had the alarm been given correctly,the fire could have been extinguished relatively quickly.

-- page 1 --



4. Brown may have seen the fire as much as one-halfhour before Schafer called down to him. Brown, however,inexplicably failed to sound the alarm, choosing instead towait for Schafer to confirm the fire’s existence. This alsocaused a delay in the fire department’s arrival at the sceneof the fire.5. William Lee lived two houses east of the O’Leary homeat 133 DeKoven Street, a house owned by Walter Forbes.Upon seeing the fire, Lee ran southeast approximately threeand a half blocks to Bruno Goll’s drug store, located at thenorthwest corner of Canal and Twelfth Streets. Fire alarmbox number 296 was located at the store. Lee later claimedthat not only did Goll refuse to turn in an alarm, he alsoprevented Lee from doing so. Goll, on theother hand, stated in an affidavit thatupon the requests of two men heturned in not one but twoalarms. This may or may nothave been the case; regard-less, neither alarm regis-tered at the central officein the courthouse. As aresult, the firemen weredelayed in arriving atthe O’Leary barn.6. Fire alarm box num-ber 295 was located onlyabout two and a half blocksnorthwest of the O’Learybarn, at the corner of DesPlaines Street and Taylor Street.Thus, this alarm box was even closer tothe fire than the alarm at Goll’s drug store.Despite its close proximity, the O’Learys and their neigh-bors apparently did not attempt to turn in an alarm at thislocation. Consequently, firemen were delayed again inresponding to the fire.7. Chicago Engine No. 5 was one of the first engines to

appear at the scene of the fire, having responded to the callfor box 342. Shortly after arriving at the fire, however, theengine broke down. Even though it was repaired minuteslater, albeit temporarily, the damage was done. In that shortinterim, the fire crossed Taylor Street, and as the flamestraveled northeast, many believed that the fire was alreadyout of control.

One fireman stated that at first the blaze “was a nasty fire,but not a particularly bad one, and with the help of twomore engines we could have knocked it cold.” Thus, whenfire broke out in Mrs. O’Leary’s barn, there would havebeen no reason for her to think that this fire would be of anygreat consequence. But as another fireman unfortunatelynoted, “From the beginning of that fatal fire everythingwent wrong,” and the above factors melded together tobecome a seven-act comedy of errors.

It is these seven factors that exonerate Mrs. O’Leary. Whenfire broke out in her barn, there would have been no rea-son for her to think that this fire would eventually destroy

Chicago. Mrs. O’Leary ran a milk businessin her neighborhood; in her barn were

five cows, a calf, and a horse. Thebarn also contained at leasttwo tons of hay, and therewere two tons of coal in anadjoining shed, south ofthe barn. A new wagonstood nearby in thealley. The O’Learyproperty was notinsured. Had she beenin the barn when thefire broke out, it seemsunlikely that she wouldhave run back into her home

and allow her property to bothliterally and figuratively go up in

smoke. Instead, she would have criedfor help and attempted to extinguish what

was then just a minor barn fire and save the building andits contents.

from http://www.thechicagofire.com/exoneration.php©2004 Richard F. BalesUsed with permission.

Adapted from The Great Chicago Fire and the Myth of Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow©2002 Richard F. Bales by permission of McFarland & Company, Inc., Box 611,Jefferson, NC 28640 www.mcfarlandpub.com.Images ©Shutterstock Images LLC/imaginatoon

-- page 2 --

Wasn’t me.



From the Ruins Our City Shall Riseby George F. Root

A song of hope and resurrection.

1. Ruins! Ruins! far and wideFrom the river and lake, to the prairie side,Dreary, dreary and darkness falls,While the autumn winds moan

thro’ the blackened walls.

Chorus a tempo

But see! the bright rift in the cloud …And hear! the great voice from the shore …Our city shall rise! yes she shall riseQueen of the west once more …

2. Ruins! Ruins! street and squareIn a hopeless confusion are mingled there,Strangely, strangely our old haunts fadeIn the cast open waste that the fire has made.

3. Ruins! Ruins! naught is hereBut the wreck of our homes, and our

hopes most dear,Fallen, fallen in ashes grayWhere they lie with our wealth and

our pride to-day.

The Great Chicago Fire and the Web of MemoryCopyright © 1996 by the Chicago Historical Societyand the Trustees of Northwestern UniversityLast revised 10-8-96



THE CHICAGO FIRE

Though Mrs. O’Leary’s unfortunate cow historically has borne the blame for the Great ChicagoFire of 1871, no one is really sure how the fire began. But by the time the “Great Conflagration”ended, it was one of the greatest disasters of the nineteenth century.

The fire began around 9 p.m. Sunday, October 8, 1871, in a barn behind the house ofPatrick and Catherine O’Leary at 13 DeKoven Street. No one knows what started the fire, but itwould not have taken much to set the cityablaze. Chicago was constructed mostly ofwood, with 88 miles of wood-paved streets,561 miles of wooden sidewalks, tens ofthousands of wooden buildings, and acres oflumber mills and factories. Only an inch-and-a-half of rain had fallen sinceIndependence Day, and the drought, recklessconstruction, and poor preparation madethe city vulnerable.

Despite these liabilities, firefighters mighthave contained the fire except for a series ofterrible failures. The firemen, exhausted fromhaving contained a large fire the day before,were at first sent to wrong the address. Whenthey finally arrived at the O’Learys the blazewas out of control, and strong winds weredriving the fire straight to the center of town.

Individuals stayed in some of the build-ings because the structures was supposedlyfireproof, and many spectators rushed down-town to see the blaze. They all soon realizedthey were in danger, and panicked crowdsfilled the streets, cutting off escape routes. Wooden streets and sidewalks burned. Even the rivercaught fire as grease on the water ignited and traveled to ships, setting them ablaze.

The fire burned for two days and only died out when rain began to fall on the morning ofOctober 10. The blaze destroyed 34 blocks of the city, killed 300 people, left 100,000 peoplehomeless, and caused $200 million worth of property damage.

Sources:http://www.chicagohs.org/history/fire.htmlhttp://www.chicagohs.org/fire/prefire/index.html

by Lorrie Castaneda; ©2008 by Recorded Books, LLCImage ©Jupiterimages Corporation

Jan

et

All

en

Ga

ze

tte



©2006JupiterimagesCorporation

http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1266.htm

No. 1266: CHICAGO FIREby John H. Lienhard

Today, a new look at an old fire. The University of Houston’s College of Engineering presents this series about themachines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity created them.

The great Chicago fire began around nine on the windy Sunday evening of Oct. 8th, 1871. It didn’t burn itself outuntil Monday night. Rainfall had been only 28 percent of normal that summer, and Chicago’s population had recent-ly grown by a factor of ten.

Thirty years earlier, the modern balloon-frame house had come out of Chicago. That’s the wooden structure withlight joists and cross-members that we use in houses today. Chicago had become an overcrowded, wood-built, bone-dry city with a poor fire department.

The fire destroyed over three square miles of city, killed 250 people, and left 100,000 homeless. If one thing hadn’tstarted the fire, another would’ve. But, still, we wonder what did start it.

My 1970 Encyclopaedia Britannica says the cause was unknown. My 1897 Britannica says the cause was an over-turned lamp. When I was young, the great urban legend told how the fire began when Mrs. O’Leary milked her cow,and the cow kicked over her lantern.

Now Richard Bayles, who works for the Chicago Title Insurance Company, has gone back into his company’s oldfiles looking for Mrs. O’Leary. He found that she lived in a small rear house off DeKoven Street. Behind her housewas a barn where she kept five cows. She sold milk to the neighborhood. Bayles has gone through testimony from thehearing after the fire.

Pegleg Sullivan, a young man with a wooden leg, testified he’d been on the far side of DeKoven Street and seen firebreak out in the O’Leary barn—nothing about Mrs. O’Leary or cows kicking lanterns. Sullivan had a lot to say aboutthat night. He told how he’d run across the street to the barn and released the animals.

But old insurance maps show a house and a high fence blocking Sullivan’s view of the barn. And are we to believehe ran 200 feet on a wooden leg, then fought his way through the fire in the barn?

Sullivan also testified that he went to the barn every evening to feed his mother’s cow—also in Mrs. O’Leary’sbarn. So Sullivan had been in the barn himself. Bayles thinks he started the fire by dropping his pipe—or maybe bykicking over a lantern.

In any case, Mrs. O’Leary had been home in bed when the fire started. But the fire department ended the hearingsquickly—before it could come out that they’d been taking bribes. They’d been looking after places that could affordbribe money at the expense of Mrs. O’Leary’s working-class neighborhood.

As for Mrs. O’Leary: the myth about the kicked lantern grew as the tabloid press went after her. She finally had to fleeto Michigan. In those days, it was the Irish who occupied the lowest rung on the social ladder, and Mrs. O’Leary made agood target. But Chicago really burned because all the factors favored a fire—and no one was paying proper attention.

I’m John Lienhard, at the University of Houston, where we’re interested in the way inventive minds work.

For more on the Chicago fire see Episodes 61 and 836 and the website http://www.chicagohs.org/fire/. For more on the balloon frame house see Episode 779.

The Engines of Our Ingenuity is copyright © 1988-1997 by John H. Lienhard.

Engines of Our Ingenuity



Escape fromthe Blaze

Claire Innes was woken by a pounding on her bedroom door andher mother’s shouts. A huge fire was approaching their home, and the

family had to flee.

Claire ran downstairs, where her parents and sibling were desperately throw-ing a few of the family’s belongings into a cart. Claire grabbed a bundle, and the

family fled, running toward the Chicago River.

The strong wind filled the air with burning bits of wood thrown by waves of fireand superheated air. The fragments landed on buildings, sparking new fires and

spreading the blaze.

The streets were filled with frantic people and the crowd pushed Claire along. Shemanaged to stay with her family until a man grabbed her bundle and tried to pull it fromher. Another man intervened and stopped the thief, but the delay had separated Claire fromher family.

Claire waited, assuming her parents would return for her. But another building caught fire andthe frightened crowd surged forward, forcing Claire from her place. She ran down an alley, hopingto see her family in the group of people rushing by. But the crowd passed and Claire was alone.

All around her, buildings were ablaze. Claire ran to follow another crowd into an alley andstopped to catch her breath. When she looked up again, the fire had cut off her escape. She quicklyhid behind a pile of bricks and buried her face in the dirt, using her bundle to cover her head. Thefire burned around her, lighting her dress, but she managed to extinguish the flames.

After the fire passed, Claire continued searching for her family. Finally, exhausted, and not know-ing what else to do, she decided to return to her home.

Her family’s house had been reduced to a pile of brick and ash. But, luckily, Claire spotted herfather standing nearby, and she was reunited with her family.

Source: http://nationalgeographic.org/ngkids/9809/chicago/chicago.htmlby Lorrie Castaneda; ©Recorded Books Image ©Jupiterimages Corporation



The Great Chicago Fireby Julia A. Moore

The great Chicago Fire, friends,

Will never be forgot;

In the history of Chicago

It will remain a darken spot.

It was a dreadful horrid sight

To see that City in flames;

But no human aid could save it,

For all skill was tried in vain.

In the year of 1871,

In October on the 8th,

The people in that City, then

Was full of life, and great.

Less than four days it lay in ruins,

That garden City, so great

Lay smouldering in ashes,

In a sad and pitiful state.

It was a sad, sad scene indeed,

To see the fire arise,

And hear the crackling of the flames

As it almost reached the skies,

And sadder still, to hear the moans,

Of people in the flames

Cry for help, and none could get,

Ah, die where they remained.

To see the people run for life;

Up and down the blazing streets,

To find then, their escape cut off

By the fiery flaming sheets,

And others hunting for some friend

That perhaps they never found,

Such weeping, wailing, never was known,

For a thousand miles around.

Some people were very wealthy

On the morning of the 10th.

But at the close of the evening,

Was poor, but felt content,

Glad to escape from harm with life

With friends they loved so well,

Some will try to gain more wisdom,

By the sad sight they beheld.

Five thousand people were homeless,

Sad wanderers in the streets,

With no shelter to cover them,

And no food had they to eat.

They wandered down by the lake side,

Lay down on the cold damp ground,

So tired and weary and homeless,

So the rich, the poor, was found.

Mothers with dear little infants,

Some clinging to the breast.

People of every description

All laid down there to rest,

With the sky as their covering,

Ah, pillows they had none.

Sad, oh sad, it must have been,

For those poor homeless ones.

Neighboring Cities sent comfort,

To the poor lone helpless ones,

And God will not forget them

In all the years to come.

Now the City of Chicago

Is built up anew once more,

And may it never be visited

With such a great fire no more.



The Road Not TakenRobert Frost (1874–1963)

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

©2007 by Jupiterimages Corporation



by PAM BELLUCK

Late one night, when we were all in bed,

Mrs. O’Leary lit a lantern in the shed.

Her cow kicked it over,

Then winked her eye and said,

“There’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight!”

Now it can be told: Mrs. O’Leary and her cow have got a bumrap. Somebody else may have started the Great Chicago Fire.

So, at least, says a title insurance company lawyer, who hasspent every other Saturday for the last two years burrowing into theunderbelly of Chicago’s most grievous disaster and most popularlegend—indeed, one of the most notorious yarns of urbanAmerican folklore.

Richard F. Bales, a 45-year-old employee of the Chicago TitleInsurance Company, contends that his research throws water on theO’Leary cow-conflagration theory.

He says evidence suggests Mrs. O’Leary was not in the barnmilking her cow that night 126 years ago, but was home in bed.

And he says there is another likely culprit: a relatively unknownfellow named Daniel (Peg Leg) Sullivan, a one-legged horse-cartdriver who was a neighbor of Mrs. O’Leary and who may, in fact,have been in her barn, lighting a lantern or smoking a pipe on Oct.8, 1871, when one-third of Chicago burned down, 300 peoplewere killed and 100,000 were left homeless.

Mr. Bales is not the first person with a hunch that Mrs.O’Leary might be innocent. But he realized a couple of years agothat, for all the speculation, no one had ever looked in depth atsome crucial pieces of evidence. No one, for example, had been ableto map the area around DeKoven Street, where the fire started inthe O’Leary barn.

Mr. Bales had access to the property records kept by ChicagoTitle. He dug them up and figured out what houses and barns

stood where, how the doors were positioned and where the fencesstood. Then he sat down in the Chicago Historical Society archiveswith his laptop computer and began to transcribe the 1,000 pagesof the official inquiry conducted by the Chicago Fire Department.

He was struck that Peg Leg Sullivan seemed to have a lot to say.Mr. Sullivan said he had been in front of another neighbor’s houseand had seen the fire break out in the O’Leary barn. But Mr. Balesdiscovered that the title records showed that at least one house,maybe two, plus an eight-foot-high fence, would have blocked Mr.Sullivan’s view.

Mr. Sullivan also told the fire department that he had run tothe barn, had tried to rescue the animals and then had run to gethelp—all on his wooden leg.

“It does not seem possible that Sullivan would be able to hob-ble 193 feet into a burning barn that was full of hay and wood shav-ings, struggle with animals, fall down, but still ultimately free acalf,” Mr. Bales wrote in an article published in the Spring issue ofThe Illinois State Historical Society journal.

Mr. Bales thinks that Mr. Sullivan, who also testified that hewent to the O’Leary barn every evening to feed the cow that hismother kept there, might have been in the barn and inadvertentlycaused the fire himself.

“There’s no smoking gun, but I think I have enough ancillarysmoke,” Mr. Bales said this week as he stood outside the old watertower that was one of the few structures to survive the fire.

Mr. Bales says he thinks that Mr. Sullivan “dropped a pipe ormaybe dropped a lantern,” adding: “A third of Chicago burneddown. You can’t blame him for being afraid to tell.”

To be fair, Mr. Sullivan was not the one trying to implicateMrs. O’Leary, who kept five cows and made rounds selling milk inthe working-class Irish neighborhood. Indeed, Mr. Sullivan said hiscalls for help roused Mrs. O’Leary and her husband—Catherineand Patrick—out of bed.

But Mr. Bales says he thinks the fire department, in an effort toclose the case quickly and cover up what reportedly was its own

The New York TimesAugust, 17, 1997 Page A1

Barn Door Reopened on FireAfter Legend Has Escaped

Article continued on the following page.



bumbling, booze-drenched, bribe-influenced manner of quenchingthe fire in certain neighborhoods and not in others, neglected to askMr. Sullivan about inconsistencies in his story.

The official panel demurred on reaching a conclusion.

Still, the legend of Mrs. O’Leary and her cow rocketed aroundthe world, elasticized and altered along the way.

A 1938 movie, In Old Chicago, starred Tyrone Power, DonAmeche and, in an Oscar-winning role, Alice Brady, as the fire-starting cow milker, who was called Molly O’Leary in the film.

Lyrics about Mrs. O’Leary were written to the tune of “HotTime in the Old Town Tonight.”

In the telling of the tale, the cow went through various identi-ty crises. In most versions of the story, her name was Daisy; in oth-ers it was Gwendolyn or Madeline. (Her real name, if she had one,has been lost to history.) There was even a postcard circulating inthe years after the fire that putatively showed the culpable cow—except the animal was a steer, complete with long horns.

And as a symbol of Chicago, the cow has endured in poetry, paint-ings, product commercials, tavern names and gift-shop trinkets.

“One of the most remarkable things about this is the way thatthe city embraced its own destruction,” said Carl Smith, a professorof English and American Studies at Northwestern University, andauthor of a book about the Great Fire, Urban Disorder and theShape of Belief (University of Chicago Press, 1995). “It is one of thenodes of memory in American popular culture, another Kennedytheory, another Lincoln theory.”

Mrs. O’Leary herself was both vilified and sought after by the1870’s incarnations of paparazzi and the tabloid press; she report-edly refused to sell her story or her photograph, and, mortifiedby descriptions of her as lazy or slow-witted or as a woman witha husband who made her do the milking, she moved to Michiganfor a time.

“On one hand it can be seen in a kind of sinister way, anti-Irish, anti-woman, anti-Catholic, anti-poor,” Professor Smithsaid of the O’Leary legend. “On the other hand, it became inte-grated in the Chicago booster mythology: This is the city that acow kicked over.”

On occasion, other theories have been floated.

There was an allegation that the fire was started by an exiledmember of the Paris Commune who wanted to “take revenge on thecapitalist class,” but missed and burned down mostly working-classhouses, said Karen Sawislak, an assistant professor of history at

Stanford University and the author of a 1995 book on the Chicagofire, Smoldering City: Chicago and the Great Fire (University ofChicago Press). There was the rumor that the fire had been proph-esied by an American anarchist.

And, in 1985, Mel Waskin, who worked for a science film-making company, wrote a book calledMrs. O’Leary’s Comet! CosmicCauses of the Great Chicago Fire, which said the fire was caused bypieces of a comet hitting Chicago.

Both Professors Smith and Sawislak say they think the mys-tery will never be solved, but they add that Mr. Bales might beonto something.

“It’s really a very impressive piece of historical detective work,”Professor Sawislak said. “And I think he has gone at it with sourcesand skills that are unique.”

Professor Smith, who last year wrote the text for a ChicagoHistorical Society Web site in honor of the 125th anniversary of theGreat Fire, said he would very likely include Mr. Bales’s thesis in anupdated version of the site.

“Dick Bales has done a very careful and suggestive investiga-tion,” Professor Smith said.

Will the Peg Leg Sullivan theory catch on?

Will Steven Spielberg option the Illinois State HistoricalSociety journal article?

Mr. Bales knows that legends have a longer shelf life than facts.

But, with less than 100 pages of the fire department inquiryleft to transcribe, he is working on a book he hopes will becomeaccepted history.

And a month and a half ago, in the city’s upscale Lincoln Parkneighborhood, came the first sign that the man with the wooden legmight yet earn a spot in the Chicago pantheon of infamy, right upthere with Al Capone and John Dillinger: A new bar and restaurantopened—the first to be called Peg Leg Sullivan’s.

Belluck, P. “Barn Door Reopened on Fire After Legend Has Escaped.” The New YorkTimes, National Report, Sunday, August 17, 1997, p. 10.

From the New York Times, August, 17 ©1997 by The New York Times. All rights reserved.Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The print-ing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of the Material without express written per-mission is prohibited.

The New York TimesAugust, 17, 1997 Page A2

Barn Door Reopened on Fire After Legend Has EscapedContinued from previous page.

by jim murphy - charles n scott middle schoolsch-sms.ss4.sharpschool.com/userfiles/servers... ·...

Documents