USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > Discovery and conquests of the Northwest, with the history of Chicago, Vol. II > Part 6
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47
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The City Press Association.
mained the same, practically, ever since, Mr. Nixon having been annually reelected president and Mr. Lawson continuing as secretary and treasurer. The present vice-president and third member of the executive committee is H. H. Kohlsaat (Times-Her- ald) and the present board of directors includes: R. W. Patterson, W. H. Turner and C. M. Faye.
The bureau idea in Chicago antedated the present organization, however. April 17, 1880, J. T. Sutor established what he termed the Metropolitan News Service in which he began to show what might be done in the way of "covering" routine matters. His prospectus showed that each month in Chicago there were over one hundred and fifty meetings of various societies and clubs to which the newspapers nearly all sent reporters and he began by undertak- ing to look after these. Within a few weeks he had broadened his work to include "justice courts," which at once brought him into the wide field of routine news, and then he began to cover "railroad routine." All of this was of assistance to the newspapers and within a year he had business enough to quit repor- torial work himself and employ six or eight men. Among these were George R. Wright and John M. Russell, young students at the old Chicago University. Wright and Russell entered into the work with spirit and determination and in 1882 the City Press Asso- ciation was their personal property, Mr. Sutor hav- ing retired. The office then and for eight years after was at 162 Washington street, the present site of the Times-Herald building. Under the management of Wright and Russell the field of the association grew into, practically, that which the present association was organized to cover; twenty-five reporters were of- ten employed and the character of the work made it a valuable adjunct to any news service.
When, in 1890, most of the news paper publishers determined to establish an association of their own,
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the patronage left for the then existing association was very little. The Times, The Globe and the Even- ing Mail were not members of the new association and on the patronage of these the old association con- tinued a curtailed service for some time. A. S. Leckie and H. L. Sayler, who was employed by Wright and Russell secured the control of the older association and a year later the two associations were amalgam- ated, Mr. Leckie and Mr. Sayler assuming charge of the single association April 26, 1891 and Mr. Ballan- tyne withdrawing. The management has been the same ever since. Two years later the association re- moved to the Western Union building at Clark and Jackson streets where it was installed in commodious rooms on the same floor with the Associated Press which has always been one of its patrons. From this place the most elaborate and first wholly success- ful system of pneumatic tubes operated in this coun- try was installed to connect the association offices with the offices of various newspapers and branch offices of the association in the City Hall. Using its cooper- ative ideas, the association not only transmits its own report to its members in this way-an almostin- stantaneous service-but also forwards thefull report of its neighbor the Associated Press, and the Western Union telegrams intended for the newspapers. The service of the association at present calls for nearly (50)employes of all kinds and is continuous; the office is never closed and there is no hour when men arenot on picket duty for the Chicago newspapers.
THE GREAT FIRE OF 1871.
"A voice is ringing in the air, A tale is trembling on the wire, The people shout in wild despair: 'Chicago is on fire.' "*
In the year 1871 A. D., and the year 38 of the ex- istence of Chicago as a city, on the 7th, 8th and 9th of October, occurred the great fires. They mark an episode in Chicago history, never to be forgotten. The official census of the city for 1870 was 298,977. Its population at the time of the fires, one year later, at a prudent estimate, may be set down eight per cent more, making 322,895. A small portion only of these were born here. They had been drawn hither by those incentives which the locality offered for spec- ulation, not only in the rise of real estate, but in the facilities which the place offered as an emporium for the sale of every kind of merchandise, to supply the increasing wants of the great Northwest in the build- ing up process in which she was then, and must still for many years, be engaged, before she will have tak- en upon herself the conditions of political and social maturity.
The extra stimulus which the war had given to the increase of business in Chicago had subsided, and a lull in that impulsive haste that had long been a dis- tinguishing feature here, had settled upon the city. The volume of staple business was without diminu- tion, the real estate market was firm, and the demand for this important auxiliary to wealth was healthy; but yet there was evidently an undercurrent mani- fest, in moneyed circles, signifying that prices of it would not soon again advance, at least, by any eccen- tric movement. After the war was over, a general expectation followed that prices for everything would
* "The Fall of Chicago," a poem written by Mrs. S. B. Olsen, while the fire was burning, and published in a pamphlet.
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fall immediately, and as one, two, three and four years had passed without any serious reduction, eith- er in goods or real estate, the people of Chicago had begun to believe that no such destiny was in storefor them. Such was the feeling in the spring of 1871.
The latter part of the summer and autumn follow- ing passed without rain in the entire Northwest. The whole country was so exhausted of moisture that ev- en the night refused her customary allowance of dew on the vegetation, and the grass was crisp beneath the feet of the hungry cattle of the pasture. The earth was dry as ashes to the depth of three feet, and the peaty bogs of the marsh were as combustible as the contents of the furnace. Southern winds prevail- ed, bringing warmth without moisture, and fanned the forest into universal tinder. Even the summer's growth of the prairie would feed a flame in places where it had not been grazed down or mowed. Chica- go was not unlike the country around in dryness, and, unfortunately, the well-built buildings of stone and brick which composed her central portions were partly surrounded by cheap wooden buildings, char- acteristic of all Western cities of sudden growth. It was among these that a fire broke out a little before ten o'clock on the night of October 7, 1871, on Clinton street, near its crossing of Van Buren street, two blocks west of the river. Owing to the inflammable character of the building where it began, and the strong wind that blew directly from the south, it quickly spread to adjacent buildings, and ere it could be ex- tinguished, burnt over the area lying between Van Buren street on the south, Clinton on the west, Adams on the north, and the river on the east, except one or two small buildings on the outermost corners of the blocks.
This was the largest fire that had ever visited Chica- go up to this date.
The next evening, Sunday night, October 8, about
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the same hour, a fire broke out six blocks south of the first fire, in a cow stable on the north side of De- Koven street, a little east of Jefferson. The account at the time attributed it to the kicking over of a kerosene lamp by a cow, while its owner, a woman named O'Leary, was milking her, and in the turmoil of the hour, this theory was accepted as veritable truth, published in the newspapers, and even in some of the books giving the history of the fire, but no evi- dence can befound to sustainit, while, on the contrary, the following statement would go to disprove it, or, at least, involve the cause of the fire in mystery. On the following morning, (Monday), Clinton S. Snowden then city editor of the Chicago Times, and E. L. Wake- man, manager of the Louisville Courier-Journal for Chicago, while the fire was yet consuming the buildings in the North Division, visited the scene where it started. Here they found a large crowd of excited men speculating on its cause, and here was the hut of O'Leary, with doors and windows barred, while her cow stable, where all the crowd supposed that the fire originated, was reduced to ashes. The two sight-seers now determined to force a passage into the O'Leary hut, and to this end pried up one of the back windows with a board and entered the premises.
They found Mrs. O'Leary in a fearful state of sus- pense least she should be arrested as an incendiary, but somewhat under the influence of stimulants to brace up her courage for the occasion. She solemnly denied any knowledge of the cause of the fire, and if she knows its cause, without doubt she will carry the mysterious burden while she lives. The above cir- cumstances are stated because they describe the first interviewing of Mrs. O'Leary, and both of the gentle- men were well-known journalists of Chicago. Their statement accords with the following, from the foreman of the first engine company on the ground, which is here inserted as official:
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CHICAGO, November 14, 1880. Mr. Rufus Blanchard, Dear Sir :- In compliance with your request as to the origin and condition of the great Chicago fire, I would state, that being the first officer at the fire, that I received an alarm from the man in the watch-tower of engine company No.6, one minute in advance of the alarm given by the watch- man in city hall tower. On my arrival at the fire, which was in the alley bounded by Jefferson, Clinton, Taylor and DeKoven streets, I discovered three or more barns and sheds on fire.
I connected to the nearest, fire plug, located on the corner of Jefferson and De Koven streets, and went to work. As to which barn the fire originated in,I could not say.
As to the fire not being checked in its northward progress, I would state in explanation, that pre- vious to the great fire of 1871, watchmen were sta- tioned in the city hall tower, to keep a lookout for fires; and if a fire was discovered by either of the men, he called the operator on duty in the fire alarm office, located on the third floor below the watch-tower, and instructed him what box to strike.
On the evening of Oct. 8, 1871, the watchman on duty in the city hall tower, discovered the fire, and ordered the operator to strike a box located one mile southwest from the fire, which he should have located one mile northeast, and which would have brought the first alarm engines instead of the second, which responded to the alarm given by watchman, the first alarm engines remaining at their respective houses.
In conclusion, I would state that the above are facts.
WILLIAM MUSHAM, Foreman of Engine Co. No.6.
What might have been its cause, there is no reason- able suspicion that it was the result of incendiarism.
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Before the strong south-westerly wind which was then blowing, it penetrated diagonally across block after block, at first cutting a swath about 80 feet wide, gradually increasing in width in passing through the cheap wooden buildings in its track, leaving behind a fiery wake, making slow but sure inroads, laterally on both sides. At11:30 it had reached the open ruins of the previous night's devastations. Though up to this time the utmost exertions of the firemen were un- availing against the progress of the flames, it was hoped that the broad space burnt the night before would arrest the northern progress of the fire, and the river its eastern progress. But by this time it had attacked the planing mills and various manu- factures of lumber along the west side of the river, be- tween Taylor and Van Buren streets, and a living- mass of fire, covering a hundred acres of combustibles, shot up into the clouds, lighting up the midnight hour with a sheet of flame, which dashed hope of arresting its career to the ground. At one bound the wind car- ried burning brands, not only across the river, but even to Franklin Street. These newly kindled fires immediately spread, and the South Side was ablaze; and now it assumed proportions that exceeded in magnitude its intensity thus far. The whole South Division was now thoroughly alarmed, it being evident that not only the entire business area of the city must burn, but nearly the entire North Division lay in the track of the destroyer in its irresistible pro- gress before the wind. Still a ray of hope was left to the North-siders, and to the owners of the Tribune building also, which was supposed to be fire proof. This hope was dispelled two hours later, as will ap- pear from the following account, written in Sheahan & Upton's History, from notes as they viewed the scene from the upper windows of the Tribune building:
"About one o'clock, a cloud of black smoke rose in the south-west, which, colored by the lurid glare of
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the flames, presented a remarkable picture. Due west another column of smoke and fire rose, while the north was lighted with flying cinders and destructive brands. In ten minutes more, the whole horizon to the west, as far as could be seen from the windows, was a fire cloud with flames leaping up along the whole line, just showing their heads and subsiding from view like tongues of snakes. Five minutes more wrought a change. Peal after peal was sounded from the Court House bell. The fire was on La Sallestreet, had swept north, and the Chamber of Commerce began to belch forth smoke and flame from windows and venti- lators. The east wing of the Court House was alight: then the west wing; the tower was blazing on the south side, and at two o'clock the whole building was in a sheet of flame. The Chamber of Commerce burned with a bright steady flame. The smoke in front grew denser for a minute or two, and then burst- ing into a blaze from Monroe to Madison streets, pro- claimed that Farwell Hall and the buildings north and south of it were on fire. At 2.10 o'clock the Court House tower was a glorious sight. At 2.15 o'clock the tower fell, and in two minutes more a crash announced the fall of interior of the building. The windows of the office were hot, and the flames gave a light almost dazzling in its intensity. It became evi- dent that the whole block from Clark to Dearborn, and from Monroe to Madison, must go; that the block from Madison to Washington must follow; Portland Block was ablaze, while every-thing from Clark to Dearborn, on Washington street, was on fire. At2:30 the fire was half-way down Madison street; the wind blew a hurricane; the firebrands were hurled a- ong the ground with incredible force against every- thing that stood in their way. Then the flames shot up in the rear of Reynold's block, and the Tribune building seemed doomed. Aneffort was made to save the files and other valuables, which were moved into
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the composing room, but the building stood like a rock, lashed on both sides by raging waves of flame, and it was abandoned. It was a fire proof building; and there were not a few who expected to see it stand the shock. The greatest possible anxiety was felt for it, as it was the key to the whole block, including Mc Vicker's Theatre, and protected State street and Wa- bash and Michigan avenues, north of Madison street. When the walls of Reynolds' Block fell, and Cobb's building was no more, the prospects of its standing were good. Several persons were up-stairs and found it cool and pleasant-quite a refreshing haven from the hurricane of smoke, dust and cinders that assail- ed the eyes.
"Meanwhile the fire had swept along northward and eastward. The Briggs House, the Sherman House, the Tremont House, had fallen in a few min- utes. The bridges from Wells to Rush street were burning; the Northwestern Depot was in a blaze, and from Van Buren street on the south, far over into the north side, from the river to Dearborn street, the whole country was a mass of smoke, flames and ruin. It seems as if the city east of Dearborn street and to the river would be saved. The hope was strength- ened when the walls fell of Honore's noble block with- out igniting that standing opposite. The vacant lot to the south seemed to protect it, and at seven o'- clock on Monday morning the whole of the region designated was considered saved, no fire being visible except a smouldering fire in the barber's shop under the Tribune office, which being confined in brick walls, was not considered dangerous. Every effort was made to quench it, but the water works had burned, and the absence of water, while it announced how far north the flames had reached, forbade any hope of quenching the fire below.
There was one remarkable turning point in this fire, in which everything was remarkable; and that
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was at Madison street bridge, where every one expect- ed to see the fire re-cross to the west side, and com. mence upon a new path of destruction. Directly a- cross this bridge were the Oriental Flouring Mills, which were saved from destruction by the immense steam force pump attached to the mill, by which a powerful stream of water was thrown upon the exposed property, hour after hour. This pump undoubtedly saved the West Division from a terrible conflagration, for if the Oriental Mills had burned, the combustible nature of the adjoining buildings and adjacent lum- ber yards would have insured a scene of devastation too heart-sickening for contemplation.
The scene presented when the fire was at its hight in the South Division, is well nigh indescribable. The huge stone and brick structures melted before the fierceness of the flames as a snow-flake melts and dis- appears in water, and almost as quickly. Six-story buildings would take fire, and disappear for ever from sight, in five minutes by the watch. In nearly every street the flames would enter at the rears of buildings, and appear simultaneously at the fronts. For an in- stant the windows would redden, then great billows of fire would belch out, and meeting each other, shoot up into the air a vivid quivering column of flame, and poising itself in awful majesty, hurl itself bodily several hundred feet , and kindle new buildings. The intense heat created new currents of air. Thegeneral direction of the wind was from the southwest. This main current carried the fire straight through the city, from southwest to north-east, cutting a swath a mile in width, and then, as if maddened at missing any of its prey, it would turn backward, in its frenzy, and face the fierce wind, mowing one huge field on the west of the North Division, while in the South Division it also doubled on its track at the great Un- ion Central Depot, and burned half a mile southward in the very teeth of the gale-a gale which blew a per-
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fect tornado, and in which no vessel could have lived on the lake. The flames sometimes made glowing diagonal arches across the streets, traversed by whirls of smoke. At times, the wind would seize the entire volume of fire on the front of one of the large blocks, detach it entirely and hurl it in every direc- tion, in fierce masses of flame, leaving the building as if it had been untouched-for an instant only, how- ever, for fresh gusts would once more wrap them in sheets of fire. The whole air was filled with glowing cinders, looking like an illuminated snow storm. At times capricious flurries of the gale would seize these, flying messengers of destruction and dash them down to the earth, hurrying them over the pavements with lightning-like rapidity, firing every-thing they touched. Interspersed among these cinders were lar- ger brands, covered with flame, which the wind dashed through windows and upon awnings and roofs, kind- ling new fires. Strange, fantastic fires of blue, red and green, played along the cornices of the buildings. On the banks of the river, red hot walls fell hissing into the water, sending up great columns of spray and exposing the fierce white furnace of heat, which they had enclosed. The huge piles of coal emitted dense billows of smoke which hurried along far above the flames below. If the sight was grand and over- powering, the sound was no less so. The flames crack- led, growled and hissed. The lime stone, of which ma- ny of the buildings were composed, as soon as it was exposed to heat flaked off, the fragments flew in every direction, with a noise like that of continuous discharg- es of musketry. Almost every instant was added the dull, heavy thud of falling walls, which shook the earth. But above all these sounds, there was une other which was terribly fascinating; it was the steady roar of the advancing flames-the awful diapason in this carnival of fire. It was like nothing so much as the united roar of the ocean with the howl of the blast
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on some stormy, rocky coast.
Great calamities always develop latent passions, e- motions, and traits of character, hitherto concealed. In this case, there was a world-wide difference in the manner in which men witnessed the destruction of all about them. Some were philosophical, even merry, and witnessed the loss of their own property with a calm shrug of the shoulders, although the loss was to bring upon them irretrievable ruin. Others clenched their teeth together, and witnessed the sight with a sort of grim defiance. Others, who were strong men, stood in tears, and some became fairly frenzied with excitement, and rushed about in an aimless manner, doing exactly what they would not have done in their cooler moments, and almost too delirous to save their own lives from the general wreck. Of course, the utmost disorder and excitement prevailed, for nearly every one was in some degree demoralized, and in the absence both of gas and water, had given up the entire city to its doom. Mobs of men and women rushed wildly from street to street, screaming, gestic- ulating and shouting, crossing each other's paths, and intercepting each other as if just escaped from a mad house. The yards and sidewalk of Michigan and Wabash avenues for a distance of two miles south of the fire limit in the South Division, were choked with household goods of every description-the contents of hovels and the contents of aristocratic residences, huddled together in inextricable confusion. Elegant ladies who hardly supposed themselves able to lift the weight of a pincushion, astonished themselves by dragging trunks, and carrying heavy loads of pictur- es and ornamental furniture for a long distance. Some adorned themselves with all their jewlery, for the pur- pose of saving it, and struggled along through the crowds, perhaps only to lose it at the hands of some ruffian. Delicate girls, with red eyes and blackened faces, toiled hour after hour, to save household goods.
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Poor women staggered along with their arms full of homely household wares and mattresses on their heads, which sometimes took fire as they were carry- ing them. Every few steps along the avenues were little piles of household property, or, perhaps, only a. trunk, guarded by children, some of whom were weep- ing, and others laughing and playing. Here was a man sitting upon what he had saved, bereft of his senses, looking at the motley throng with staring, vacant eyes; here, a woman, weeping and tearing her hair and calling for her children in utter despair; here, children, hand-in-hand, separated from their parents, and crying with the heart-breaking sorrow of childhood; here a woman, kneeling on the hot ground and praying, with her crucifix before her. One family had saved a coffee-pot and chest of draw- ers, and raking together the falling embers in the street, were boiling their coffee as cheerily as if at home. Barrels of licquor were rolled into the streets from the saloons. The heads were speedily knocked in, and men and boys drank to excess, and staggered about the streets. Some must have miserably perish- ed in the flames, while others wandered away into the unburned district, and slept a drunken sleep upon the sidewalks and in door-yards. Thieves pursued their profession with perfect impunity. Lake street and Clark street were rich with treasure, and hordes of thieves entered the stores, and flung out goods to their fellows, who bore them away without opposition. Wabash avenue was literally choked up with goods of every description. Every one who had been forced from the burning portion of the division had brought some articles with them, and been forced to drop some, or all of them. Valuable oil paintings, books, pet animals, instruments, toys, mirrors, bedding, and ornamental and useful articles of every kind, were trampled under foot by the hurrying crowds. The streets leading southward from the fire were
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