CHICAGO FIRE/PESHTIGO FIRE: 135 YEARS AGO TODAY

On this day in 1871 the Great Chicago Fire began, ultimately wiping out much of what is now Downtown Chicago and more. The Chicago History Museum has an online exhibit about the fire. More information can be found on Wikipedia and in an 1871 account by James Goodsell archived on About.com. Chicagology has some details on the spread of the fire and some of the buildings destroyed. Two surviving structures were the famous Water Tower and the nearby Pumping Station.

The Elk Grove Library has several books specifically on the Fire:
American Apocalypse: The Great Fire and the Myth of Chicago (1990) by Ross Miller (720.9773 MIL)

The Great Chicago Fire, described in seven letters by men and women who experienced its horrors, and now published in commemoration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the catastrophe (1946) (977.311 ANG)

The Great Fire: Chicago, 1871 (1971) by Herman Kogan and Robert Cromie (977.311 KOG)

The Great Chicago Fire and the Myth of Mrs. O'Leary's Cow (2002) by Richard F. Bales (977.3110 BAL)

On this same date in upper Wisconsin, another devastating fire occurred, The Great Peshtigo Fire. More people were killed in this fire (more than 800) than in the Chicago fire (300). An eyewitness account is available of what has been called the "most devastating fire in American history".

Books in the Elk Grove Library on this fire include:
The Great Peshtigo Fire: An Eyewitness Account (1999) by Peter Pernin (J 977.533 PER)

Wildfire!: The 1871 Peshtigo Firestorm (2005) by Jacqueline A. Ball (J 363.379 BAL)

Firestorm at Peshtigo: A Town, Its People, and the Deadliest Fire in American History (2002) by Denise Gess and William Lutz (977.533 GES)

Oh, yes. There's one more book, about the famous song:
There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight (1974) [illus. by] Robert Quackenbush. (J 784.4 QUA)