Map of the Great Chicago Fire
Newspaper Broadside, 1871

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Chicago Fire Map
Chicago Fire Map Chicago Fire Map
Map of Chicago Showing the Burnt District
Every Saturday, Boston: c. October 9, 1871
Woodblock print
13 x 9.5 inches, article
11.25 x 7.25 inches, map
15.25 x 11.5 inches, overall
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Scarce ephemeral newspaper broadside map and article with breaking news about the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, issued as an "Extra, Given Away with Number 95 of Every Saturday," a popular periodical in the 1870s. The article explains the map as follows:

As we go to press with this extra sheet, the fire is still burning, though it is evidently dying out from lack of material to further feed its fury. How much of the great and prosperous city is left, we shall not know for some hours. Nearly every building in an area of over five miles long by more than a mile wide appears to have been destroyed. We indicate the burnt district by an irregular line from the top to the bottom of our map, at a varying distance back from the Lake. Between this line and the water, as we judge from the last telegraph report, scarcely any thing is left, except possibly the residences on the lake shore below Harrison Street.

The article indicates that the map was based on the latest Colton atlas. In the map, important buildings are designated by number including the Custom House, Board of Trade, Crosby Opera House, Sherman House, New Pacific Hotel, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Evening Journal, and Lincoln Park. The place the fire first began is also indicated, in the southern portion of the Western Division. The article posited that the fire spread quickly because the buildings in that section were largely made of wood, and that this was exacerbated by a “severe gale wind.” The Chicago fire began about 9:00 p.m. on Sunday, October 8, 1871, reached the business district by 1:30 a.m. and quickly spread northward across the main river. The fire continued burning on Monday until rain helped extinguish the last of it around midnight. 300 people died, 90,000 were left homeless, and property loss amounted to $200 million.

Every Saturday was an eclectic and literate weekly periodical published in Boston. Its editors included essayist Edwin Percy Whipple and Thomas Bailey Aldrich. It was published at least from 1866 to 1874.

Reference:

“1871: The Great Fire.” Chicago Public Library Chicago Timeline. August 1997. http://www.chipublib.org/004chicago/timeline/greatfire.html (9 April 2004).