The Great Chicago Fire

Grab a bucket, because this week we’re diving into the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Our story began when a bunch of 19th-century capitalists took at a swamp at the south end of the Great Lakes and turned it into a trade empire. Chicago became a powerhouse of timber (from the north) and agriculture (the Great Plains to the west). The Union Stock Yards and their slaughterhouse's dumped all that fermenting grease and waste right into the river where it would eventually become a problem. We’ll break down how pine-tar streets, 55 miles of raised plank sidewalks, and 17 massive wooden grain elevators packed with explosive grain dust turned Boomtown Chicago into a three-mile blowtorch, why the deadliest fire that night actually happened up in Wisconsin while Chicago hogged the telegraph lines, and how the ashes gave birth to the modern skyscraper. Most importantly, we are officially making it our personal mission to clear the names of Catherine O’Leary and her innocent cow once and for all—because when you pave your streets in literal turpentine and build seventeen towering flour-bombs along a river of boiling pig fat, blaming the Irish immigrant and her livestock is just lazy journalism. Thanks for listening and don’t forget to hit subscribe, leave a 5-star rating and write a review. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Join us at Patreon.com/HistoricallyHigh and get enrolled for some fun extra content Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.