Personal Experiences During the Chicago Fire 1871

_by_

FRANK J. LOESCH

_of the_

Chicago Bar

CHICAGO PRIVATELY PRINTED 1925




Copyright, 1925
by
FRANK J. LOESCH


Printed in the United States of America




As this is a purely personal narrative, names of other persons
with whom the author came in contact from time to time during
these experiences have been omitted as of no historical value to
readers.




Personal Experiences During the Chicago Fire[1]


On October 8th, 9th and 10th, 1871, a fire swept out of existence the
entire business district of the City of Chicago, located mainly on
the South Side, virtually the entire residence and business districts
of the North Side, blocks of many handsome and comfortable residences
on the South Side and a goodly number of homes and business buildings
on the near West Side. Over two hundred people lost their lives, and
of its three hundred thousand inhabitants one hundred thousand were
rendered homeless, of whom I was one. The money loss was over two
hundred million dollars. The land devastated covered an area of over
two thousand acres.

I had been a resident of Chicago for sixteen months and in that time
had made myself familiar with its business and residence districts
and its topography. I lived, at the time of the fire, in a boarding
house at 110 North Dearborn Street, now 548 North Dearborn Street, one
door south of Ohio Street. I was a bookkeeper for the Western Union
Telegraph Company at its main office which was located at the northwest
corner of Washington and La Salle Streets. The building now situated
there, known as the Merchants’ Building, excepting some recent interior
improvements, is a replica of the one which was destroyed by the fire.

The summer of 1871 was an intensely hot one. No rain had fallen in the
Lake region for about three months prior to October 8th. Great forest
fires with large loss of life were taking place in the then heavily
pine-forested regions of Central and Northern Michigan and Wisconsin.
I recall our excitement on Saturday and Sunday, October 7th and 8th,
on reading in the morning papers stories of the destruction of forests
and villages, with the loss of many lives, about Sturgeon Bay and other
places in Wisconsin and Michigan.

As is generally known, the residential portion of Chicago was almost
wholly constructed of wood. Brick and limestone structures were largely
confined to the South Side business district. South of that were many
handsome residences with Joliet limestone fronts and brick side walls.
Such was not the case on the North and West Sides where the common
structures, by the mile, were the one-story basement frame cottages
with outside front steps leading to the upper floor. It is needless
to state that there were many handsome homes in the district north of
Indiana Street (now Grand Avenue), east of Clark Street and south of
North Avenue.

The streets, where paved, were generally so with the so-called
Nicholson blocks, round pine blocks laid upon hemlocks planks and
heavily tarred over with a surfacing of torpedo gravel which in a short
time was either ground into the soft pine blocks or swept away by the
wind and rains.

The sidewalks, except in the South Side business district, where
limestone flags predominated, were entirely of pine or hemlock planking
and many of the streets were raised on wooden supports from four to ten
feet above the natural surface to meet the street grades which had by
that much been raised above the natural surface. It can be seen what
added fuel to a general fire was made by such construction of sidewalks
and street pavements. The raised portions of the streets were sustained
by heavy stone retaining walls on each side.

As there was little of grade uniformity in the sidewalks on some of the
side streets, it was a real exercise to go up and down the steps from
one lot to another between the walks respectively at street and surface
grade. I recall that on the North side of Indiana Street, between
Clark and Dearborn Streets, in a distance of about three hundred feet,
pedestrians were forced to climb steps up and descend three times, the
natural and street grades being over six feet apart. As the street
was unpaved and impassable for foot passengers most of the time by
reason of mud or deep dust, one was forced to stick to the walk. All
this to accommodate the selfish interests of owners of abutting lots
who refused to bring their walks to the street grade. Sprains, bruises
and broken limbs were common, due to such irregularity of sidewalks,
especially in wintertime.

Before midnight of Saturday, October seventh, our household of about
thirty boarders was aroused by cries of “Fire!” The sky was red from
a southwesterly blaze. A number of the young men, including myself,
started for the scene of it and were stopped on the east side of the
Madison Street bridge. From there we saw the destruction of the then
Union Railroad Station, a frame structure, located on the East Side
of Canal Street, opposite Monroe Street. South of Adams Street to Van
Buren Street were located planing mills and lumber yards. The fire was
fierce and spectacular with such material to feed upon, but there was
no wind and the fire exhausted itself without crossing the South Branch
of the river. That was the night before the beginning of the great
fire. It brought directly home to us all the fire hazard the city was
exposed to and little else was talked of on that Sunday. Everything was
as dry as tinder from the long drouth and great summer heat.

Chicago had no Sunday theaters, and for amusement one had to resort to
the German beer gardens or to the North Side Turner Hall, where good
music was the rule afternoons and evenings. Therefore church attendance
was much more general than it is now. I would say that Chicago was then
a City of Churches. I attended many services in different churches and
often found standing room at a premium on Sunday evenings.

As churchgoers were coming out of their places of worship on Sunday
evening, fire bells were ringing furiously and a rapidly increasing red
glare towards the Southwest Side indicated that another fire had broken
out. A strong hot wind had been blowing from the southwest during the
day and it seemed to have gained in strength at this time.

Few of our fellows at the boarding house cared to see another fire
after being up most of Saturday night at the one just referred to.
Therefore only two of us started out for the scene of the new fire.
My companion was young LeRow, somewhat undersized, but exceedingly
active. His enthusiasm to see the new blaze carried me with him. We
made our way speedily to about Franklin and Monroe Streets. The fire
had just leaped across the South Branch at about Adams Street. In that
vicinity was located the gas reservoir which supplied the South and
North Sides with illuminating gas. All about that neighborhood were
many small cottages inhabitated mostly by Irish people. The destruction
of their homes was an immediate certainty. The possible explosion of
the gas tank could not be long deferred. The frantic excitement among
the people in their fear that they could not save their household goods
was most moving. With a sympathy but a heedlessness which neither of
us could afterwards account for, in the imminent dangers about us, we
helped as we could to move their goods into the street. They had better
have been left in the cottages for almost as they were being placed in
the street some began to smoke from the heat of the air.

The panic which paralyzes human faculties under conditions like that
is illustrated by one instance. From one of the cottages a mother had
carried into the street, of all things, a bed tick filled with straw,
where burning brands were everywhere falling in increasing numbers, and
rushing back brought out and dumped a pair of twin infants upon the
straw tick and hastened back into her home just as LeRow and I dropped
some household articles and noticed a burning brand fall into the straw
tick. He grabbed one infant and I the other. We gave the babes to their
frantic mother, urging her to run with them for their lives. As we
started to run we noticed the straw tick ablaze. No houses had then
begun to burn but most of the people joined us in getting away.

We stopped a few moments at the northeast corner of Monroe and Wells
Streets to watch a scene there. Barrels of whisky were being rolled
on skids into Wells Street from several large stores of dealers in
beverages, presumably awaiting immediate cartage, though no drays were
visible. However, what we did see was a number of men, each two or
three with a scantling or piece of board ramming some of the barrels,
and as soon as part of the head had been driven in and the liquor was
gushing out the men would throw themselves flat into the street to
gulp the whisky as it poured over them. No one interfered with their
amusement. It is very likely that some of those men were among those
reported “missing” later on.

There was no time to lose. The streets were being littered with burning
brands. We ran east on Monroe Street to La Salle and north towards
Washington Street. North of Madison Street we were literally running
over a coating of red and smoldering fire brands. We saw no other
people in that block. About half way in the block LeRow cried out that
he was smothering. I grabbed him by the collar and dragged him as fast
as I could go to Washington Street where the air was free of smoke with
few cinders on the street, but a strong hot wind was blowing eastward
and carrying many burning brands high in the air. Here LeRow revived
and we parted, he to go north, I to go into the Telegraph Company’s
office to learn if I could be of service. Some three or four of my
fellow clerks were there, besides the manager. Some one had opened
the vault door, into which we put all the books of account that were
about, the men having worked on them that day. Unfortunately the chief
bookkeeper had been working all day in a private room on the fourth
floor, on his September accounts and had left many of the books up
there for the night. They were, of course, lost. I saw the manager
place a lot of gold coins into a small portable office safe at his
desk. It was suggested to him that we move the safe into the large
vault but he declined to have it done as being unnecessary. After the
fire the stack of vaults in that building was found upright amidst the
debris of the rest of the building, the contents of each vault being
intact, but the manager’s safe had been melted down and after diligent
search amidst the ruins there was found only a little trickle of gold
in the shape of a thin vein over some bricks.

All salvage work in our office was being done by the light of the
flames. The building opposite on Washington Street was ablaze and the
roof of our building was burning. The telegraph operators had abandoned
their instruments on the upper floors and were running down the
stairway as I hurried into La Salle Street and ran north to Randolph
Street.

The tunnel at that time and until the late Eighties, when it was
turned over for the exclusive use of North Side cable cars, had a
foot passageway on the east of the teamway. The teamway entrance near
Randolph Street was then where it is now, while the foot passage
entrance was at Lake Street, the descent being by a stairway to a
boardwalk.

I stopped for a few moments at the north corner of Randolph and La
Salle Streets to look about me. All the buildings south on La Salle
Street as far as I could see, south of Washington Street, were ablaze.
So were some north of it. My particular attention was, however, called
to the Court House and City Hall. The former had for its center
building a brown stone structure surmounted by a cupola in which was
hung a large bell. The interior of the building was burning and the
flames being carried up through the open space had set the bell to
ringing. Above all the sounds of the roaring fire, the wind and the
excited shouts of a moving mass of people the bell whirled on its
frame and over its stanchions, ringing out with a weirdness and a
despairing clangorous volume, as though it were possessed of sense and
were agonizing in its struggle against destruction. For many years
thereafter the memory of its clangor often awoke me at night to recall
the scene.

The east and west wings of the Court House were constructed of Joliet
limestone--the west wing being the City Hall. I watched for some
moments, with a fascination which only the growing danger to myself
drew me away from, the effect of the fire upon the city hall. The
strong southwest wind was driving the heat in sheets of flame from the
hundreds of burning buildings to the west of it, upon the southwest
corner of the building, with such terrific effect that the limestone
was melting and was running down the face of the building with first a
slow then an accelerating movement as if it were a thin white paste.

I stopped for a moment to give directions to the wife of the janitor
of the Metropolitan Block, the building which was duplicated after
the fire and recently wrecked to make room for the present Burnham
Building. The woman had four small children and a well filled basket
of food. She explained that as it was impossible to save any household
goods and as children were always hungry she had decided to take only
food.

The carelessness with which some people must have viewed the oncoming
flames was evident to me when I saw numbers of guests rushing out
of the Sherman House onto Randolph Street. Most of them were in
nightclothing, carrying whatever other clothing came handiest in the
panic. The Court House opposite must have been burning for over a half
hour for it was now near midnight and yet those people had apparently
waited, or were left asleep, until the hotel was about to burst into
flames before deciding to leave.

I joined the rush of people passing up La Salle Street to the tunnel’s
pedestrian-passage entrance. Some time after leaving Monroe and
Franklin Streets there was a loud explosion. I learned from the crowd
making its way to the tunnel that it was the explosion of the gas
works. Gas lights had gone out everywhere and the escaping gas had
doubtless hastened the action of the fire in many buildings. At any
rate the tunnel was dark. As we entered it in pairs with a regularity
that seemed as if it were a drill, each person put his hands on the
shoulders of the person in front of him and with almost a lock step,
with the slogan, “Keep to the right!” “Keep to the right!” “Keep to the
right!” repeated sing song by almost everyone we emerged on the North
Side at Kinzie Street. Strange to say that at the same time that a
double line of us was walking north through the tunnel, a single line
was going south in the same order repeating the same slogan. There was
no panic, no crowding, only good humor and good order.

On reaching my boarding house I found Dearborn Street a mass of people
and of horses and vehicles. It appeared like an aimless confusion but
it was everyone looking out for himself and family without regard to
others, and expecting others to do the same. It was exciting but not
wildly panicky. We all realized that haste was necessary to get away
somewhere out of reach of the flames which were shooting high above
the blazing business district and by the light of which we were moving
about inside as well as outside the houses, but frankly I saw no
evidence of disregard of others’ rights in the confused moving to and
fro. There were more calm people than one would expect. Our landlady
had bethought herself to examine every room a few moments before I
returned, she told me, and found two young men sound asleep. I saw one
of those two standing on the upper landing of the outer stairs, looking
wildly toward the blazing South Side. He had on a dress vest over a
long linen duster. His confusion of mind was not much greater than that
of most of us later when it came to a question of what we wished to
save and what we could save.

I found that most of the boarders were still in the house but were fast
leaving with whatever they could carry. I found two, who, ignorant of
the extent of the fire, still refused to believe that it would reach
the North Side. At that time the air was literally full of burning
embers, the wind being so strong that we saw pieces of wood two or more
feet long in full blaze being driven northeastwardly.

Individuals and groups were concerned as to the direction to take in
seeking to escape the oncoming flames. I joined a company of a dozen or
more, broken into smaller groups later, who decided on going directly
west on Ohio Street to as near the North Branch as we could get, thence
northward toward Fullerton Avenue, then the city limits, which no one
thought of as ever likely to be reached by the fire. Some of the others
decided to go directly north into Lincoln Park. That was a bad choice.
Others decided that they would go east on Ohio Street to the lake and
be in safety on the beach which was very wide at that point. That was
the worst choice. I recall a lady and her family taking that direction.
When next I saw her she was minus much of her hair, eyebrows and
eyelashes. They had been scorched off by the intense heat in spite of
the fact that she sat in the lake and frequently ducked her head into
the water.

In a very short time we had carried two trunks about three blocks west
on Ohio Street and leaving two people to guard them, two returned to
the house, threw two more trunks down the stairs and out into the
street and carried them to the place where the others were guarded. We
returned a second time for our books and carried some armfuls a block
or two away and placed them alongside an alley fence.

During this time there was, of course, the greatest excitement on all
sides as people were leaving their houses with whatever they could
carry. The fire had now crossed the river and was making rapid progress
on the North Side.

One scene took place, the relation of which will bring a sympathetic
thought for an unknown book lover from all my hearers. I was on the
walk in front of the boarding house when my attention was called to a
gentleman who had a set of beautifully bound books in his two arms.
He explained to an expressman that they were a set of Shakespeare and
was asking him to take and move the books. He declined because he said
he was trying to save his own goods. The gentleman then offered him
$50.00 to carry the books to a place of safety. This was declined on
the ground that he must go quick to save his family. Then the gentleman
said “won’t you take and save the books if I make you a present of
them?” “Yes,” he would. “Then take them,” said the owner, as he put
them into the wagon, turned away and burst into tears.

At our second return to the house there were few people in the
immediate vicinity. I saw one man whom I knew as a leather dealer
weeping bitterly as he stood at the corner taking a farewell look at
the home he owned which was so soon to go up in flames, and while that
saddened me, another incident gave me a hearty laugh. It was the sight
of a man simply crazy rushing up Dearborn Street with a window blind
under one arm but clearly under the impression that he was saving a
valuable household article.

On my third return to the house no one but my roommate was there and to
all appearances the street south of us was deserted. We agreed it was
useless to try to save any more books and we left. We saw no one else
south of us. I remained a moment longer, standing on the top of the
outside stairway, and saw a sight which in vividness has never faded
from my memory. The fire had crossed Kinzie Street some four blocks
south of Ohio Street where I was standing. The roar of the flames, the
air alive with flying embers, the fierceness with which the wind and
fire combined were whirling the flames into and circling in and above
the street, fascinated me. No voice could make itself heard above the
roar. Even in the house we had to shout into each others’ ears to make
ourselves heard. As I came down the steps facing south, the three
blocks south of Indiana Street caught fire with the suddenness of the
explosion of a bomb, including the pavement and the sidewalks, and
were a mass of flames in a moment. It was the first and only instance
in which I saw an enveloping movement of the flames to that extent
and especially the burning of the street pavement. The dryness of the
season, the superheat for hours of the fiercely driven flames, the
tarred-over pavement, were sufficient explanation to account for the
street’s burning, while the thousands of falling burning brands added
to the other factors before mentioned easily explained how three blocks
of buildings, including brick business buildings, could burst into
flames at almost the same instant.

I was around the corner in a second after that and with overcoat collar
up, sheltering myself from the heat on the north side of the building.
It was now after one o’clock of Monday morning.

When I reached Clark Street the dense mass of people who had been
moving up Clark Street for two hours or more had apparently not
diminished in numbers although the fire was then burning only about
three blocks south, but it was burning with a backward movement slowly
towards the northwest. I use the word “slowly” in comparison with the
terrific speed with which it was burning directly northeastwardly, of
which I have just given an instance.

It will be understood that the force of the southwest wind was driving
the flames in a straight northeast direction, the termination point
so far as inflammable material was concerned being at about the
pumping station at Chicago Avenue and present North Michigan Avenue.
Every one should have felt, but did not, that safety in flight lay in
keeping out of the line of the fire as indicated, by walking northward
and branching off westwardly and northwardly as fast as conditions
permitted. I have indicated that many people took to the lake, in
the direct line of the fire. It was strange how indifferent we all
were to the contingency of a sudden shift of the wind to the south or
southeast, which would have caught thousands upon thousands of us in
instant peril of our lives. But the dense, slowly moving mass of people
on sidewalks and roadways hindered any free or fast movement east of
Wells Street or south of Ohio Street. There were few moving teams in
the roadway at this time.

However, the passing crowd had a puzzle nearly equal to that of “The
Lady or the Tiger.” On my first return to the house I noticed unusual
excitement two or three doors south of Ohio Street on the east side of
Clark Street. Making my way there I found my haberdasher, a Jew and a
genial fellow, in the most frantic condition of mind and body. He was
running to the rooms above and back again and inquiring about the fire
and looking down the street at the oncoming flames and rushing upstairs
and down again with inconceivable rapidity. I did manage to extract
from somebody the information that a baby was momentarily expected
upstairs, but not knowing the exigency, it was not entering the world
with that expedition which the nervous father, physician and family in
attendance expected of it. Their very excitement, it was said, proved
a hindrance. The puzzle, therefore, was, would the fire or the baby
first come to that home? The passing crowd caught the state of affairs,
took a humorous interest in it and were extending good wishes and
“hopes for the best.” I learned a year or two later from the father
that “it” came first and was a boy. The mother was carried out of the
house on a stretcher when the fire had actually reached the south end
of that block.

At the northwest corner of Ohio and Clark Streets there was a hat and
cap store. Every time I passed there I heard the proprietor invite
every passer-by to enter the store and fit himself with a hat or cap
without charge. His reiterated invitation shouted to the moving mass
was: “They’ll all burn up anyway. Make yourselves at home with a new
hat free. No charge! Take what you want.” Not a man or boy accepted the
invitation during the four times I passed there. It was acknowledged
with humorous good nature by the men but time was too precious, the
fire was too dangerously close; one could not afford to risk the loss
of his place in the moving mass and separation from family or friends
for a new hat.

At Ohio Street many people turned west so that with those coming up La
Salle and Wells Streets the crowd seemed no less on Ohio Street west of
Wells than it did on Clark Street. It was more dense then than I saw
it anywhere else. It was the best-natured mass of people I ever was in
the midst of. The women were more sober-minded than the men. Losing a
home was more serious to them, but endless badinage passed back and
forth between the men concerning the suddenness and inconvenience of
the moving and the ignorance of a destination or abiding place. I never
heard a crying child except in one instance. The children as a rule
considered it all a wonderful lark. I occasionally saw old people or
sick ones being led or almost carried. On Ohio Street west of Clark
Street everybody was carrying something, including babies, but most
did as I finally did--left everything to burn and walked on with the
feeling that we were lucky to escape with our lives.

Two of us men were puzzled as to what we should do with a woman
standing in a dazed condition with only a nightgown on. She could not
answer a question. While we were puzzling, the husband, in a wild state
of mind, rushed up, lifted her into a single buggy standing at the
curb, placed himself between the thills and pulled away, not, however,
with a trotting gait.

An Italian of middle age carrying a load of bedding on his back was
crying lustily. On inquiry as to the cause he said brokenly, with great
sobs, that he had lost his dog. Some one inquired if he had a wife and
children. He replied that he had but had lost those too. To a jibe from
someone as to his failure to cry over their loss, his answer was that
they could take care of themselves but the dog couldn’t, and he knew
he had lost him forever. The uncomplimentary remarks of the refugees
manifested their radical dissent from such unnatural feelings.

I saw two boys carrying a showcase filled with candy. One walking in
front carried the case with his hands behind him. Both were crying
softly. They had lost their family. I saw them the next day on the
prairie west of McCormick Seminary, playing marbles, the candy all
gone. I have regretted since that I did not inquire whether they had
lived on that in the meantime, for there was little opportunity to
trade it for more substantial food.

By the process of slow walking to Erie Street bridge where a
considerable number of people waited for an hour or two, thence by
a ride with an express man, a part of our group found ourselves at
the east abutment of Chicago Avenue bridge about 4 a. m. It had a
slight grade above the street. From it for two hours we saw the flames
everywhere leaping upward but ever steadily making their way toward
us. At one time we witnessed six churches, some of them with spires,
sending their flames high into the air, making the most spectacular
exhibition of the fire on the North Side. They included St. James
Church, Unity Church which had two spires, New England Congregational
Church, as well as one or two others, the names of which I cannot now
recall. None was burning fast, it seemed to us, but it was an awesome
as well as a depressing sight. They were the outstanding feature of the
fire from our viewpoint for over an hour.

About 6 a. m. a number of us succeeded in inducing an expressman who
was driving north to carry us to Fullerton and Racine Avenues, where
some of the party had friends who had a comfortable home. We were
welcomed in spite of the fact that about thirty other friends had
already taken refuge there, and so many more recalled that it might
prove a place of safety that by Monday evening over seventy homeless
people had gathered there.

As we drove up Larrabee Street and Lincoln Avenue, we found the
residents out in force on the streets pitying us as we drove by with
others in the same condition. In reply to questions we gave what
information we could as to the extent of the fire. Not one person, to
all appearances, was in the least personally concerned or seemed to
have any idea of peril from the fire to _his_ home. Yet about 3 o’clock
that afternoon I walked down to North Avenue and from there looking
down Larrabee Street and later Sedgwick Street, a distance of a half
mile, saw only deserted streets. Not a human being was visible in that
distance with both sides of both streets on fire at about North Avenue,
the fire having extended further north on Sedgwick Street than on
Larrabee Street.

I spent most of Monday after 10 a. m. in wandering about the district
between North and Fullerton Avenues, a distance of a mile. The houses
were being rapidly vacated north of North Avenue. The people had a
better opportunity to remove their belongings or bury them than had
those who were caught unprepared during Sunday night in the district
south of Division Street. Many could be seen burying furniture. One
musician told me some months after that he had so buried a fine piano
only to lose it, as thieves had gotten it before he could return to his
devastated home lot some days after the fire.

The fire was burning steadily and rather rapidly northward without a
hand anywhere attempting to stay its progress. It was plain to be seen
and often commented on by the fire-dispossessed wanderers that three
or four fire engines with hose connections and water could at any time
after 10 or 11 on Monday morning, have prevented all progress of the
flames north of Division Street or at least north of North Avenue. The
engines could have been obtained. It only needed water but there was no
water. The destruction of the Chicago Avenue pumping station early in
the morning had ended all hope of ending the fire so long as there were
houses, streets, sidewalks and fences to feed it and no rain to quench
it. I saw the pavements burning with the same fury as houses and board
walks.

The strongest impression made upon my mind next after the burning
of those thousands of homes was the long lines of vehicles loaded
with goods and human beings and accompanied by files of thousands of
homeless ones walking alongside. There was not the humor that there
was in the earlier dispossessed ones. They were mostly headed west for
Webster Avenue bridge over the North Branch. Those of us who had lost
all our personal belongings were curious to note the mental agony and
nervousness under which these later refugees were suffering in the fear
the fire would yet overtake them. There were delays and halts in the
endless, slowly-moving procession of vehicles and people. Whenever one
such occurred a stream of profanity and curses issued from the drivers
and even from pedestrians of such volume, variety and blistering
malediction on those causing the delay, that I hope the world will
never again hear its equal. It was due, of course, to the overwrought
nerves and minds of every one suffering under hours of agony from loss
of homes and personal property and fear for the lives of wife, children
or parents.

Before sunset I had returned to my place of refuge. Some thirty or
forty men had gathered there. At a council it was decided that active
measures must be taken to guard our lives. In front and to the south
of us and west of McCormick Seminary were some sixty to eighty acres
of prairie, thickly covered with very dry thistles and grass. If the
fire swept across that all our lives would be put in jeopardy. It was
decided to find a team and plow furrows across that field as at least a
partial protection.

The second protection was the tearing down of fences and uprooting
posts which fenced in part of the prairie and throwing them into
ditches where we could handily find them. The final precaution was
the filling of many open kettles and pans with water from a well, and
placing them so that in the emergency feared each woman and child for
herself or itself, or some man for them, could soak a wrap, place it
about the woman or child, the man throwing what water he could over his
legs and then with his charge run the gauntlet of the prairie fire. The
captain in command told me off with another lively young fellow as one
of several pairs to kick off fence boards and pull out posts. It was
long after dark when we got to work but it was exhilarating work as the
night chill came on, and kicking in unison we did great execution with
the fences as well as to our legs and muscles. The hardest job was the
pulling out of posts which caused lacerated hands, but no one murmured.
We felt ourselves to be in a desperate situation. Our eyes were ever to
the south, watching the steady coming on of the fire as it lapped up in
flames street after street of houses.

About 1:30 o’clock on Tuesday morning when we had given up hope of any
stay and when the last row of houses on Belden Avenue or the street
south of it, next south of the prairie, was about being licked up,
rain suddenly came down in such volume as to assure us safety and the
extinguishment of the fire. Without more ado every man sought some
place of refuge. I crept under an outside stairway to find just room
enough to lie in amidst several other men who had forestalled me. I had
not slept since early Sunday morning. I had had nothing to eat since
Sunday noon, but I do not recall that I was either sleepy or hungry.

When I arose about daylight Tuesday morning I could scarcely believe
the sight which met my eyes. The prairie which we had so worked over
the evening before and which we had left tenantless was filled with
a mass of refugees who had drifted there since 2 a. m. Some one of
our crowd made a rough count and reported over three thousand men,
women and children camped there. As I walked about I saw many whom I
had earlier seen as refugees. Among others were the two boys and the
janitor’s wife with her four children. Every group seemed to be engaged
in cooking breakfast. Judging by smell and sight I was of the opinion
that the three staples which had been forehandily saved from the
devouring flames were coffee, rye bread and sauerkraut. At my refuge a
cup of weak tea and one biscuit was served to each adult. Immediately
after that hearty breaking of a two days’ fast, several of the men
started for downtown to find out something of the conditions and what
we could do about getting to work or leaving the city.

Our walk was down Lincoln Avenue to Clark Street, thence into Lincoln
Park at Wisconsin Street to North Avenue. There were still many
graves in the old cemetery south of Wisconsin Street which had been
incorporated within the park limits. Not a wooden marker had escaped
the flames while former granite and marble headstones were in evidence
only by the chips left of them which littered the ground. Broken china
was everywhere, plainly the remnants of household things which had been
carried there for safety and then abandoned to the flames which swept
the dry grass, shrubbery and trees out of existence.

We could note the line of trees along Clark Street abutting the walk,
which had burned down to the soil. A former double row of Lombardy
poplars which lined the roadway to the park from Clark Street and
North Avenue northeasterly could only be traced by the blackened spots
scarcely above the surface. There were only a few people about in the
burned over district. There were no police, no militia and no soldiers.
It was a desert--a universal ruin with here and there only showing
a stone or brick remnant of the wall of a church or of some former
substantial business building, where a big city of people had lived in
general happiness only three days before.

In our walk south of North Avenue we were often non-plussed to
identify the cross streets since former landmarks had been completely
destroyed and where brick business buildings had existed they seemed
to have fallen into the streets making piles of debris. The Ogden
House occupying the present site of the Newberry Library stood out
prominently wholly uninjured.

The rails of the street railway on Clark Street had almost without
an exception been burned out of their ties and lay about the street
and upon the former sidewalk space twisted and warped like dead black
snakes in agonies of contortion. The paving blocks had been largely
burned over and out and were often displaced, leaving holes in the
street. The sidewalks and everything which was inflammable had been
burned.

On Chicago Avenue a lot of water mains had been distributed before the
fire. Sticking out of one of these we found the legs of a man who had
been roasted to death in his place of refuge, probably blindly sought
by him in a drunken stupor.

We were told that a few hours after we had left Chicago Avenue bridge
and as refugees in vehicles and afoot were crowding over it in the face
of advancing flames, a small oil refinery near there caught fire,
exploded and caused the death of over a hundred people by burning or by
drowning in being crowded off the bridge or jumping into the river in
the frenzy and agony of the crowd following the explosion.

On Dearborn Street not more than two hundred feet north of my late
boarding place, we saw a gruesome sight. Only a day or two before the
fire the son of the owner of a residence had recovered from an attack
of typhoid and the tan bark had been removed from the street. The body
we saw, as we learned afterwards, was the father of the sick boy. With
a blind fatalism which can not be explained, after the man had gotten
his son and family to a place of safety he had returned to the house
determined to save it. To that end he got out the garden hose, wound it
about his body and turning on the water undertook to put out burning
brands as they fell, until a whirlwind of fire burned him to death.
His right hand held the nozzle. The marks of the hose burned off were
plainly discernable over his back as he lay on his face burned to a
crisp.

Of my former boarding place nothing was left, even the bricks having
largely been pulverized by the heat, and buried treasure of silverware
was afterwards found melted to a shapeless mass.

I met there our next door neighbor’s wife. They owned their home. She
had lost eyebrows and eyelashes and her hair was singed. Her story was
a strange one. Her husband was downtown trying to save what he could
out of his Sherman House Barber Shop. With the fire drawing near, she
felt that her canary bird would lose its life when exposed to the great
heat, if she undertook to carry it with her. She therefore decided
to remain in the house and be burned up with it and her canary. At
the last moment as she saw the flames a few doors away, her courage
failed and with a heavy wrap, without a hat, she dashed out, to find
herself almost stifled by the intense heat, and could barely get around
the corner without being suffocated. She was unaware of the loss of
her hair until told of it by friends whom she found after hours of
wandering northward.

As the bridges across the river had all been burned, I made for the
La Salle Street tunnel, only to find that the foot passageway was
impassable because the flaming brands which had been swept into the
south entrance at Lake Street had set fire to the board walk which was
wholly consumed.

The brick walls of business buildings on both sides of La Salle Street
north of Kinzie Street had fallen outward into the open space of the
tunnel driveway. I joined a number of men who were making their way
slowly over the debris of still heated bricks into the unlit tunnel
through the Cimmerian darkness to daylight at Randolph Street.

The South Side was a mass of smoking ruins. I can recall only one
building the walls of which remained standing to about full height.
That was the First National Bank Building then at the southwest
corner of State and Washington Streets where the Reliance Building
now stands. It stood out like a monument above all the devastated
business district, except that here and there could be seen a stack
of vaults. That was the case at the Merchants’ Building. After some
difficulty I found only a few square feet of unbroken stone, and a
warm stone at that, upon which I could sit amidst the ruins of my
former business place and observe what was going on. I was there about
an hour meditating on what course to pursue and what city I could go
to. I had only two dollars in my pocket and had the impression that
Chicago would, of course, disappear as a business place. I began to
question my impression when I saw a score or more of men at work in
the ruins of the Chamber of Commerce now replaced by the Chamber of
Commerce Building at the southeast corner of La Salle and Washington
Streets. They were actually removing debris smoking hot, preparatory
to rebuilding. I was joined by two or three other of my fellow clerks,
all of whom, however, were living out on the West Side. One of them had
known nothing of the fire until late Monday morning.

While chatting over the supposed loss of our situations and considering
what to do, a messenger sent to the ruins to look up any clerks who
might gather there, informed us that the main telegraph office was at
State and Sixteenth Streets where we were ordered to report at once as
our services were urgently needed. The others decided not to go that
day so I walked alone down South Clark Street to about Twelfth Street
where I observed in a baker’s window only one eatable article--an apple
pie. Fearing the price would be more than two dollars, I entered
with some timidity to inquire. Finding the price to be only twenty
cents, which I joyfully paid, my courage rose to the point of asking
permission to eat the whole pie in the shop. This being courteously
granted, I promptly disposed of said pie with no crumbs left and with
remarkable mental results. I walked on with the most intense feeling of
pride that Chicago would come back and I must stay right here.

On reaching State and Sixteenth Streets, a curious sight met my eyes.
The telegraph headquarters were in a brick warehouse on the northeast
corner of those streets. The sidewalks were nearly four feet above
the street grade. There were no desks or counters in the temporary
offices, only boards laid across barrels, behind which the clerks stood
to receive telegrams. As telegrams could not be written there, senders
of them were standing in the street and using the sidewalk as desks.
From Fifteenth to Sixteenth Street and for a half block on Sixteenth,
men were standing as close as they could and use elbow room, writing
telegrams. I joined the company and wrote mine, then reported for duty.
I was placed behind a couple of barrels with a board over them as a
receiving clerk, with instructions to accept every telegram offered
without exacting any toll, and to note thereon that it was sent free on
account of fire.

So great was the necessity of getting information out to anxious
relatives that no telegrams whatever were being taken from other
places, all the operators, all wires and facilities being devoted to
sending telegrams out of the city.

I sent a long telegram to my father in Buffalo, assuring him of my
safety and that of more than a score of former Buffalonians whom I had
met in my wanderings. For years after I was gratefully told of the
relief which that telegram brought to many families besides my own, as
my father and brother went from family to family with the good news of
personal safety, at least, of the homeless people.

A hasty consignment of food had been rushed from St. Louis by the
telegraph officials. So far as I shared in it that afternoon, it
consisted of a liberal allowance of apples and cheese which, in the
slang of one of our hungry crowd, was good enough such as it was, and
plenty of it as far as it went. The next day rye bread was added to the
menu. The only drinking water I had had in three days was from the
well of our host. Water for ablution was out of the question. There was
no water to drink at the telegraph headquarters until Wednesday and
then it was unfit. It was turbid water bailed up from the lake shore.
Our thirst was assuaged by beer and we could never get enough of that
at five cents per glass. If it was abundant in the saloons across State
Street immediately after a beer wagon had discharged its cargo, the
price was five cents; as it became scarcer the price rose to ten cents,
and then to the famine price of fifteen cents. As the price rose we
endured parched throats as best we could until reports reached us of
a renewed supply of the beverage when, regardless of the demands of
business, there would be a rush of officials and clerks alike to take
advantage of the abundance and normal price to quench our, by that
time, consuming thirst.

Before dark I was excused from duty and walked through the five or more
miles of ruins to my previous night’s refuge. Preparations to leave
were being made by all the people who had not already gone. Two of us
before midnight came down to the Chicago and North Western Railway
station at Wells and Kinzie Streets. It was an eerie walk down Lincoln
Avenue to Wells, thence south to the station, over three miles. The
night was pitch dark. Most of the distance on Wells Street south of
Wisconsin Street had been built up with frame cottages. The street was
several feet above the natural surface of the lots. The owners had laid
in their winter’s supply of anthracite, then substantially the only
coal used for domestic heating and cooking. Each of those coal piles
had taken fire and was burning. There were many hundreds of them. The
intense blackness of the night, the heat from the burning coal, the
blue flames now bursting into little spurts of red, the crackling of
the coal as lumps were splitting up, the unexpected glare of a sudden
high spurt of red fire, the complete silence except the noises referred
to, the absence of any other human beings in the entire distance
traversed, made a nearly speechless walk as well as a fearful one, and
I, at least, had the feeling that the fires of hell were about us and
the imps of Satan waiting amidst them for unwary victims. Could Dante
have experienced such a night he might have added further terrors to
his Inferno. Our relief was intense when we boarded the train for a
nearby suburban town, and as fire sufferers were given a free ride.

The next morning found me back at my temporary desk with old Chicago
only a memory, but with high hopes for the new and greater Chicago
which every ambitious young man was already convinced would surely
rise out of the ashes of the old one. Looking backward over the past
half century, we see that those hopes have been more than justified,
and that the city of today with its motto, “I Will,” exceeds in
accomplishments the visions of its then most enthusiastic prophets of
future greatness.

FRANK J. LOESCH

10 South La Salle Street, Chicago, October 12, 1925.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Read before The Chicago Literary Club, Oct. 12, 1925.