Great Chicago Fire of 1871 - Was it Mrs. O'Leary's cow? Or a comet fragment?

Most people have heard the story of the 1871 (Great) Chicago Fire. Usually within the details of what happened the night of October 8th, you will hear Mrs. O’Leary’s cow being thrown under the bus as being 100% responsible. And, if the series of events that followed had been a bit different that night & had the cow not knocked over a kerosene lamp while being milked by Mrs. O’Leary….. and/or had the straw not caught fire and spread quickly through-out the old barn…..and/or had someone been there to assist Mrs. O’Leary in her efforts to extinguish the flames…… perhaps the fire would not have burned uncontrollably for the next 3 days killing 350 people while simultaneously destroying 4+ acres of downtown Chicago.

Perhaps…..

But what if I told you that at the same time the O’Leary barn fire started, 200 miles to the north of Chicago in Peshtigo, Wisconsin another fire began almost at the very same time? The fire in Peshtigo was (and still is) the most deadly on record in the United States with an estimated 2200 people killed & 2400+ acres of thick forest completely destroyed. The entire town was leveled leaving only the wood framework of one house & the brick frame of another. Every other building in this (once) thriving lumber mill community was completely destroyed. Over 800 people could not be accounted for because the remains were too badly burned. These casualties were added to a list and buried together in a mass grave ceremony.

A most tragic fire.

But did you know there was yet a THIRD fire that night? In Holland, Michigan? This one ALSO began around the same time that evening (9:30ish) and like the other two, this one destroyed over 80% of the city…leaving nothing in its path. Within a few hours, everything was just gone, and only the ash remained.

So what happened that night? Were these 3 fires related in some way? Or was it just a strange coincidence?

The summer of 1871 had brought a serious drought to the area, and many historians say that ~this~ is what caused the fires. Above average temperatures with very little rain factored with primitive fire-fighting capabilities. Add a small spark & there you go. Just a very tragic & unfortunate set of circumstances.

Yet, others will blame it on the passing comet ‘Biela’ which had been part of the Kruetz family of comets first identified in the early 1840’s. Biela had broken from the larger ‘parent’ comet, and some say the pieces coming down at the same time, in 3 neighboring states is the most logical explanation to the TRUE cause of these 3 very large & destructive fires. Eyewitness testimony supports the comet theory as well.

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As it happens, on Sunday, the 8th of October, in the year 1871, at half past nine o'clock in the evening, events occurred which caused the death of hundreds of human beings, and the destruction of vast amounts of property, across three different States of the American Union, sending millions of people into fits of the wildest alarm and terror.

The summer of 1871 had been excessively dry; the moisture seemed to be evaporated out of the air; and on the Sunday above named the atmospheric conditions all through the Northwest were of the most peculiar character. The writer was living at the time in Minnesota, hundreds of miles from the scene of the disasters, and he can never forget the condition of things. There was a parched, combustible, inflammable, furnace-like feeling in the air, that was really alarming. It felt as if there were needed but a match, a spark, to cause a world-wide explosion. It was weird and unnatural. I have never seen nor felt anything like it before or since. Those who experienced it will bear me out in these statements.

At that hour, half past nine o'clock in the evening, at apparently the same moment, at points hundreds of miles apart, in three different States, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Illinois, fires of the most peculiar and devastating kind broke out, so far as we know, by spontaneous combustion.

In Wisconsin, on its eastern borders, in a heavily timbered country, near Lake Michigan, a region embracing four hundred square miles, extending north from Brown County, and containing Peshtigo, Manistee, Holland, and numerous villages on the shores of Green Bay, was swept bare by an absolute whirlwind of flame. There were seven hundred and fifty people killed outright, besides great numbers of the wounded, maimed, and burned, who died afterward. More than three million dollars' worth of property was destroyed.
"At sundown there was a lull in the wind and comparative stillness. For two hours there were no signs of danger; but at a few minutes after nine o'clock, and by a singular coincidence, precisely the time at which the Chicago fire commenced, the people of the village heard a terrible roar. It was that of a tornado, crushing through the forests. Instantly the heavens were illuminated with a terrible glare. The sky, which had been so dark a moment before, burst into clouds of flame.

A spectator of the terrible scene says the fire did not come upon them gradually from burning trees and other objects to the windward, but the first notice they had of it was a whirlwind of flame in great clouds from above the tops of the trees, which fell upon and entirely enveloped everything. The poor people inhaled it, or the intensely hot air, and fell down dead. This is verified by the appearance of many of the corpses. They were found dead in the roads and open spaces, where there were no visible marks of fire near-by, with not a trace of burning upon their bodies or clothing. At the Sugar Bush, which is an extended clearing, in some places four miles in width, corpses were found in the open road, between fences only slightly burned. No mark of fire was upon them; they lay there as if asleep. This phenomenon seems to explain the fact that so many were killed in compact masses. They seemed to have huddled together, in what were evidently regarded at the moment the safest places, far away from buildings, trees, or other inflammable material, and there to have died together.
Another spectator says:

"Much has been said of the intense heat of the fires which destroyed Peshtigo, Menekaune, Williamsonville, etc., but all that has been said can give the stranger but a faint conception of the reality. The heat has been compared to that engendered by a flame concentrated on an object by a blow-pipe; but even that would not account for some of the phenomena. For instance, we have in our possession a copper cent taken from the pocket of a dead man in the Peshtigo Sugar Bush, which will illustrate our point. This cent has been partially fused, but still retains its round form, and the inscription upon it is legible. Others, in the same pocket, were partially melted, and yet the clothing and the body of the man were not even singed. We do not know in what way to account for this, unless, as is asserted by some, the tornado and fire were accompanied by electrical phenomena"

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Much more info at links below:

[link to endoftheage.blogspot.com]

[link to www.thechicagofire.com]

[link to www.peshtigochamber.com]

[link to www.awesomestories.com]

[link to www.americaslibrary.gov]