AP was there: Great Chicago fire, Oct. 8-10, 1871
CHICAGO (AP) — Editor’s note: It was 150 years ago that the Great Chicago Fire ignited, eventually killing about 300 people and consuming a major portion of the city over three days.
The Associated Press, just 25 years old then, sent dispatches first from its office in the Chicago Tribune building before staff fled to a Western Union office, where they filed before fleeing again because of the approaching fire.
The accounts vividly showed the fire’s chaos and destruction, work that AP’s member news organizations praised then, including this from the Fort Wayne Daily Gazette in Indiana:
“Most heartily do we agree with the Terre Haute Express that the ‘General Agent of the Western Associated Press, Hon. W.H. Smith, deserves the thanks of the country for the splendid manner in which he performed his duties at Chicago last week.’ With the telegraph buildings burned, and everything in the worst confusion, the most graphic and accurate reports were sent out promptly to all parts of the country.”
Here are excerpts of AP dispatches sent from Oct. 8-10, 1871.
Chicago, Oct. 8
Tonight is the most awful night in the annals of the city. The fire, which commenced at 10 p.m., has already swept over a space three times as large as that of last night and it is still rushing on with greater fury than has marked any stage of the progress. The engines appearing almost powerless. Fire Marshal Williams has just telegraphed to Milwaukee for all the steamers they can spare. The conflagration has already devastated at least 20 blocks, mostly composed of smaller class dwellings inhabited by poor people. Not less than three hundred buildings are entirely destroyed and more than that number of families have been rendered homeless.
The wind is blowing almost a gale from the south and a number of sparks and brands are sweeping over the city and threatening destruction on every hand. Since this report commenced, two additional alarms have been struck, and the tower on the courthouse caught fire from the dying brands, but was extinguished by the watchman in the tower. No description can give an adequate idea of the terrible scene. The fire started in a row of wooden tenements on Dockhaven Street, between Jefferson and Clinton, and as was the case last night spread with terrible rapidity before a single engine could get on the ground, and the block is in flames and burning furiously.
New York, Oct. 10 — 7 a.m.
No press dispatches have been received from Chicago later than six o’clock last evening. The last dispatch was sent circuitously by the way of St. Louis and Cincinnati, and reached us four hours after it left Chicago.
The agent of Associated Press in Cincinnati reports that private advices from Chicago were received in the early part of the night that the fire had been checked, but he was unable to get confirmation of the good news as wires were not working to Chicago and up to three A.M., communications had not been restored.
The “private advices” referred to may have been simply a repetition of the 6 P.M. dispatch from Chicago which represented that flames were checked at 1 P.M. in the southern district of the city by the blowing up of buildings under the direction of General Sheridan, but since that hour a service dispatch was sent by the Western Union Telegraph office in Buffalo, at 11 o’clock P.M., to the general office of the Company in New York that the following had been received from Chicago; no time given:
“The fire is spreading rapidly. The telegraph company has been driven from its temporary office. The whole city is doomed to go. The wind has changed and is blowing the fire in all directions.”
Since the above report was received, nothing has been heard from Chicago, and the telegraph office here reports that no telegraphic communication whatever has been had with the city.
New York, Oct. 10
The excitement in the city relative to the Chicago calamity is in nowise abated this morning. All the people who were going to workshops early were anxious readers of the papers containing Associated Press dispatches, and the sales at the news stands have been enormous.