Around 9 p.m. on Sunday , October 8 , 1871 , a fire pop in a barn in the skittle alley behind 137 DeKoven Street inChicago . Two twenty-four hours later on the hell died out , after burning nearly 3.3 square Roman mile of the city . TheGreat Chicago Firekilled 300 people , left some 100,000 residents without habitation , and destruct $ 200 million in property .
In all of Americanhistory , no bovine is more notorious than thecowbelonging to Patrick and Catherine O’Leary impeach of starting what fervor marshall Robert A. Williams called a “ hurricane of fire and cinder . ” Even as the fire foreshorten a swath through the metropolis , neighbour and newspaper reporters quickly placed the inculpation on the O’Learys and their moo-cow . In the former hours of October 9 , newspapers first report that the blaze start out when the cow kick back over a kerosene lantern while Catherine was milk the creature .
After the fire was put out , the story evolved and more blame fell on the O’Learys . Some papers reported that Mrs. O’Leary had been selling the moo-cow ’s Milk River illegally , and when city officials get word her side hustle , they cut her off . The blast , it was implied , was an act of revenge .
Other newspapers maintained that the fervour was an fortuity , and that a lantern had simply been knocked over , either by the moo-cow or by Mrs. O’Leary .
That November , the Board of Police and Fire Commissioners started an inquiry into the fire ’s cause and the urban center ’s response . In interviews with the board , Mrs. O’Leary testified that she never milked the kine in the evening and that she was numb when the flame set out , having gone to bed other complaining of a sore base . Daniel “ Pegleg ” Sullivan , a neighbour who was the first someone to raise the alarm about the flame , also evidence and confirmed Catherine ’s alibi . After two months and 1100 pages of handwritten testimony , the board members could n’t say much about the origin of the fire , except that it started in the barn . “ Whether it originated from a spark blow from a chimney on thatwindynight or was place on firing by human agency , ” they wrote , “ we are unable to determine . "
But the price to Catherine O’Leary and her cow was done . The story of the cow and the lantern circulated quick and wide and take on grasp in the public imagination . Mrs. O’Leary live out the rest of her life as a recluse , reportedly only go away her home to attend mass . Every October , reporter came to her looking for a quote for their fire anniversary narration and she shooed them aside , put forward the name of her Word James , who grew up to be a gaming honcho have intercourse as “ Big Jim ” O’Leary .
“ I recognize bad people , ” she ’d say , as she showed the men the door . She died in 1895 . Her obituary and death security lean the causa as intense pneumonia , but neighbors and supporter say the real grounds was a “ broken heart ” from the idle incrimination she received .
Then , a century after her death , Catherine O’Leary and her cow were cleared of any wrongful conduct — and another suspect was discovered .
A Map of the Great Chicago Fire Offers Clues
Richard Bales , an adjunct regional counsel with the Chicago Title Insurance Company , became interested in the Great Chicago Fire when he wrote a paper about it for a college course . His company maintains the only band of land record that outlive the Great Fire of 1871 , and he used them to dig further into the legend of the O’Learys ’ moo-cow and the origin of the fervour . In 1997 , he published an article , and later a book of account , on his research .
Bales discover that the flak plausibly was n’t by design set . The O’Learys ’ barn was full ofanimals , some of which belong to neighbors and some that were used for Catherine ’s milk line of work . There were five cows , a calf , and a sawbuck . There was also a new wagon nearby in the skittle alley , and none of the property or material acres was insured . “ Had [ Catherine ] been in the barn when the fire broke out , it seems unlikely that she would have run back into her home and allow her dimension to both literally and figuratively go up in smoke , ” Basle wrote . “ Instead , she would have cried for help and attempted to extinguish what was then just a small-scale barn fervour and pull through the construction and its content . ”
More Stories About Historical Mysteries
As for the cow , several reporter came frontward 10 after the Great Chicago Fire to accept that the story of the moo-cow kick the lantern was a prevarication , or at least came from treacherous sources . Reporter Michael Ahern , who was put to work for theChicago Republicanin 1871 , admitted in aChicago Tribunecolumn in 1921 that he and two colleagues made up the cow history to add color to their copy . After that , another newsperson , John Kelley , pen to the O’Learys ’ grandson saying that he had written the first iteration of the cow level under Ahern ’s byline , since his colleague was too drunk to file the spell .
Meanwhile , theChicago Daily Journalexplained that on the nighttime of the fervor , one of its reporters had gone to the O’Learys ' neighbourhood and listen the cow story from residents there , and the paper ran with it without further ratification . Recollections of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 published by one of the O’Learys ’ neighbors allege that some neighborhood small fry who had n’t been anywhere near the b spend the night telling anyone who would listen about a cow kicking a lantern .
The Real Origin of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871
bale suspect that the fire was start up by “ Pegleg ” Sullivan , the Isle of Man who first noticed it . When he testified before the fact-finding board , Sullivan said that he call the O’Leary planetary house around 8 p.m. and found Catherine in bed and Patrick quick to join her . He headed home , but then kept going past his house and stopped in front of a neighbour ’s house to smoke a pipe . He looked up and saw fire coming from the O’Learys ' barn and run into it to examine to extinguish the flames and free the animals before search help .
After mapping the various homes and dimension , Bales doubt Sullivan ’s version of the events . The buildings were arranged in such a way that , from where he stand to fume his pipe , Sullivan would not have been able to see the b because another nursing home would have obturate his view . What ’s more , Bales wrote , Sullivan had a wooden leg — as one might guess from his cognomen — and could n’t move very fast . Yet , Sullivan take that he ran from his smoking spot to the barn , a distance about half the duration of a football field ; escaped the barn before the fire consumed it , and then ran to alert the O’Learys and the authorities . Given his mobility issue , the aloofness involved , and the speed with which the fire spread , Bales argued that Sullivan could not have done these acts without being injure by the fire .
There ’s also the question of why Sullivan walk past his own firm to fume his pipe in front of his neighbor ’s house . Bales paint a picture that was part of Sullivan ’s alibi . Claiming to smoke his pipe where he did put him alfresco and conclude enough to the barn that he could claim to have seen the fervor , but out of prospect of his neighbor , the McLaughlins , who were induce a party that dark and would have been able-bodied to see him if he was standing in front of his own theater .
Bale argued that Sullivan was in or around the barn that dark — his female parent kept one of her Bos taurus there and he may have gone to give it . By stroke , with a careless motion-picture show of a peer or a stray coal from his pipe or by happen a lantern , Sullivan started the flaming . And when he clear he could n’t put the fire out on his own , he ran for assistant and came up with a cover story to get by blame .
In 1997 , convinced by Bales ’s argument and the evidence , the Chicago City Council passed an regulation exonerating Mrs. O’Leary and her cow .
A interpretation of this chronicle was put out in 2014 ; it has been update for 2024 .
