Keiva:
Yes, a tragic fire, but the publicity it received prevented most people from even hearing about the Peshtigo, Wisconsin fire which occurred on the same day. If I remember correctly it burned more than a million acres (call it two hundred square miles!) and killed upward of 1200 people, just about five times as many people as perished in the Chicago fire. Peshtigo burnt to the ground in an hour, and almost a thousand of the deaths occurred there.
My father's parents were each saved from one of the fires, one by being thrown into the Peshtigo River and the other into the Chicago River. My father always claimed that he was more than likely the only person to have been a direct descendant of two people saved from death by the two fires. Of course there's no way to prove it.
TdE
