Despite being the most disastrous and fatal fire in the history of the U.S., the Peshtigo Fire did not receive much national attention because a similar disaster in a larger city occurred on the same day. On October 8, 1871, the Great Chicago Fire burned for two days destroying thousands of buildings and killing around 300 people. Legend has it that a cow at Catherine O’ Leary’s farm tipped over a lantern and started the fiery inferno. The fire moved quickly due to dry weather and the copious amount of wooden buildings and sidewalks. The fire affected people of all ages and social classes in the business district of the city. Filled with large and small businesses, the business district became an economic center of Chicago. When the fire moved through the city, Chicagoans “saw the work of forty years wiped away in a single day.”[1] However, the stockyards and mills along the riverfront survived the blaze, allowing for the city to redevelop.
Written by Morgan Zdroik
Object history created July 2020
FOOTNOTES
[1] Pauly, John J. “The Great Chicago Fire as a National Event.” American Quarterly 36, no. 5 (1984): 670. doi:10.2307/2712866.
Additional Sources:
“Benchmarks: October 8, 1871: The Deadliest Wildfire in American History Incinerates Peshtigo, Wisconsin.” Benchmarks: October 8, 1871: The deadliest wildfire in American history incinerates Peshtigo, Wisconsin | EARTH Magazine. Accessed December 5, 2019. https://www.earthmagazine.org/article/benchmarks-october-8-1871-deadliest-wildfire-american-history-incinerates-peshtigo-wisconsin.
“From First Americans to Euroamericans: The Fire of 1871 and Williamsonville: A 19th Century Euroamerican Settlement in Door County.” Wisconsin Historical Markers. Accessed November 11, 2019. http://www.wisconsinhistoricalmarkers.com/2014/05/from-first-americans-to-euroamericans_64.html.
History.com Editors. “Chicago Fire of 1871.” History.com. A&E Television Networks, March 4, 2010. https://www.history.com/topics/19th-century/great-chicago-fire.
Moran Joseph M. and E. Lee Somerville “Tornadoes of Fire at Williamsonville, Wisconsin, October 8, 1871.” Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters (Volume 78), Carl N. Haywood, 1990. http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/WI/WI-idx?type=turn&entity=WI.WT1990.p0027&id=WI.WT1990&isize=M
National Geographic Society. “The Chicago Fire of 1871 and the ‘Great Rebuilding’.” National Geographic Society, October 15, 2012. https://www.nationalgeographic.org/article/chicago-fire-1871-and-great-rebuilding/.
Pauly, John J. “The Great Chicago Fire as a National Event.” American Quarterly 36, no. 5 (1984): 668-83. doi:10.2307/2712866.
“Peshtigo Fire.” Wisconsin Historical Society, August 3, 2012. https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Article/CS1750.
Peshtigo Fire Museum. Accessed December 5, 2019. http://peshtigofiremuseum.com/.
Peter Pernin. “The Great Peshtigo Fire: An Eyewitness Account.” The Wisconsin Magazine of History 54, no. 4 (1971): 246-72. www.jstor.org/stable/4634648.
Skiba, Justin. “The Fire That Took Williamsonville”. doorcountypulse.com, September 2, 2016. https://doorcountypulse.com/fire-took-williamsonville/
US Department of Commerce, and Noaa. “The Peshtigo Fire.” National Weather Service. NOAA’s National Weather Service, November 19, 2015. https://www.weather.gov/grb/peshtigofire.
US Department of Commerce, and Noaa. “The Peshtigo Fire.” National Weather Service. NOAA’s National Weather Service, November 19, 2015. https://www.weather.gov/grb/peshtigofire.
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