The First National Bank building stands in ruins at State and Washington streets after the Great Chicago Fire in 1871. The Field, Leiter & Co. store, which became Marshall Field & Co., lay in ruins.

Over the span of just a few days in October 1871, the Great Chicago Fire devastated the city, claiming the lives of more than 300 people and leaving over 100,000 residents homeless.

The 1871 fire, a second large fire that occurred in 1874, the Iroquois Theater fire of 1903, the St. Anthony’s Hospital Fire in 1949, the Our Lady of the Angels School Fire in 1958, and the ...

The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 — terrible, costly, deadly — changed the city in myriad ways. And it had a big hand in making Chicago an architectural capital.

The former Unity Church on Washington Square Park where some of the walls survived the Great Chicago Fire in 1871 and are part of the rebuilt structure, July 12, 2021. 935 N. Dearborn St.

In reality, however, nobody knows what started the fire. That is but one of the revelations in a new exhibition marking the anniversary of the tragedy, “City on Fire: Chicago 1871,” on display ...

Chicago History Museum keeps the past alive with Great Chicago Fire relic 02:06. CHICAGO (CBS) -- On the night of Sunday, Oct. 8, 1871, a fire broke out in or near a barn on what we would now call ...

On October 8, 1871, Chicago was transformed into a hellish inferno by the Great Chicago Fire. By the time a sudden rain helped extinguish the flames, 300 people were dead, and 100,000 more were ...

The Chicago Fire Academy building opened in 1961, but the site’s notoriety extends back to Oct. 8, 1871, when Patrick and Catherine O'Leary’s cow was mistakenly believed to have started the ...

The First National Bank building stands in ruins at State and Washington streets after the Great Chicago Fire in 1871. The Field, Leiter & Co. store, which became Marshall Field & Co., lay in ruins.

The First National Bank building stands in ruins at State and Washington streets after the Great Chicago Fire in 1871. The Field, Leiter & Co. store, which became Marshall Field & Co., lay in ruins.