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June 6, 2013

Ruins of Chicago After the 1871 Fire

On Oct. 8, 1871, a fire began in the barn behind the O'Leary cottage on De Koven Street, near 12th and Halsted streets. The Chicago Fire eventually would leave 300 Chicagoans dead, 90,000 homeless and 17,450 buildings destroyed. Damages totaled $200 million.

The Tribune building at the southeast corner of Dearborn and Madison Streets after the Chicago Fire of 1871.

In this stereoscopic "double" view, the wreckage of the courthouse in the foreground can be seen from a position of approximately Dearborn and Lake Streets, looking in a southwest direction, in the aftermath of the 1871 Chicago Fire. The ruins of City Hall is in the background.

The roads and ruins of Chicago in the aftermath of the 1871 Chicago Fire. You can see the Chicago River in the background.

The wreckage of St. James Episcopal Church looking north on Rush Street from Huron Street after the Chicago Fire of 1871.

An unidentified location in Chicago in the aftermath of the 1871 Chicago Fire.

The ruins of a courthouse and City Hall (in background) in the days after the 1871 Chicago Fire. There are workers walking through the wreckage in the area of the devastation of the courthouse. The long exposures of the era render them ghostly.

Gutted buildings and smoldering rubble at State and Madison Streets after the Chicago Fire in 1871. The horse-drawn trolleys and people in the street have motion blur--and some look downright eerie--because of the long exposures of the era.

The ruins of a courthouse and City Hall, looking north on Clark Street from Adams Street in the aftermath of the 1871 Chicago Fire. A food shack had already sprung up for workers.

The ruins of a courthouse and City Hall (left building, background) in the aftermath of the 1871 Chicago Fire.

If you were standing at the corner of Wabash and Washington Streets in Chicago in 1871, this is what you would see: piles of rubble, with the ruins of the Second Presbyterian Church in the background, just part of the unimaginable devastation from the "Great" Chicago Fire. The fire burned from Sunday October 8 to early Tuesday October 10, 1871, killing hundreds and destroying about four square miles in Chicago, Illinois.

(via Chicago Tribune)



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