Exemplification Essay: The Great Chicago Fire

470 Words2 Pages

The Great Chicago Fire, was a catastrophic event that charred 3.3 square miles of Chicago. It slayed nearly 300 people and more than 100,000 citizens lost their homes. The fire destroyed 17,500 buildings and Chicago lost 200 million dollars (4 billion dollars in 2016 money). A burning hell raged upon Chicago from 9:00 pm, October 8th to early tuesday morning October 10th. It sent many people running for their lives, some crossed the river thinking it would save them; but the fire burned over the river because of the oils and pollutants in the water. All of this might be leading you to wonder, how did this conflagration even start? Well, the exact cause of the fire is unknown, but many myths have been formed around one key fact. …show more content…

However, were they just going to build the city back exactly how it was? No. They decided to make it multiple times bigger and better than the old 19 century chicago. This revolutionised the way we looked at cities, Big businesses, innovative buildings and the founding of a terrible baseball team. This was the start of a new era, Chicago was the first city to have all of their buildings made out of fireproof materials, and many cities followed shortly after them. Although this didn’t benefit everyone. Chicago needed a place to get materials from, they chose Singapore, Michigan, a small coastal town. They took lumber and stone from the shore which left Singapore open to all the weather conditions. After a flood and a few sand storms singapore became an uninhabitable place to live, and is now a famous ghost town. This place is now mostly covered in sand dunes near a town called Saugatuck. This was another downside of the Great Chicago Fire, but without it Chicago would not be what it is today. As you can see, the Chicago Fire was a serious epidemic that affected thousands of people and caused millions of dollars in damage. Chicago is now a megapolis where civilians live, work, and spend most of their time in. Most people in Chicago people don’t really take time to think that 100 some years ago their city was embers of what Chicago used to