 The Burnt District
Among the Ruins
Before and After
The Losses by the Fire
Chicago by Moonlight
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Devastated Chicago remained so hot that it took a day or two before it was
possible even to begin a survey of the physical damage. According to the papers,
in some instances when anxious businessmen opened their safes among the rubble
of what was once their offices, precious contents that had survived the inferno
suddenly burst into flame on exposure to the air. Shortly after the fire,
Stephen L. Robinson, a North Division resident whose home was not burned, set
out with a printed map of the city to mark what was still standing. Among the
few scattered survivors he noted were the mansion of Mahlon Ogden (brother of
William) on Lafayette (now Walton) Street north of Washington Square Park, and
the much more modest home north of Armitage of police officer Richard Bellinger,
both of which were saved by a combination of vigilant dousings and good luck.
And had he reached the South Division, he would have seen the Lind Block
standing a forlorn watch over the downtown. Had he then crossed to the West
Division, he would have found the O'Leary cottage safe and sound in front of the
ashes of the barn.
The so-called "Burnt District," a map of which appeared in virtually every account of the
fire, encompassed an area four miles long and an average of three-quarters of a mile wide--more than two thousand acres--including over twenty-eight miles of streets, 120 miles of
sidewalks, and over 2,000 lampposts, along with countless trees, shrubs, and flowering
plants in "the Garden City of the West." Gone were eighteen thousand buildings and some
two hundred million dollars in property, about a third of the valuation of the entire city.
Around half of this was insured, but the failure of numerous companies cut the actual
payments in half again. One hundred thousand Chicagoans lost their homes, an uncounted
number their places of work.
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