Chicago. One of my favorite cities. On this date in history, one of the biggest disasters in U.S. history occurred.
The Great Chicago Fire was a conflagration that burned from October 8 to October 10, 1871, killing hundreds and destroying several square miles in Chicago, Illinois. Though the fire was one of the largest U.S. disasters of the nineteenth century, the rebuilding that began almost immediately spurred Chicago’s development into one of the nation’s most populous and economically important cities.