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SYSK Selects: Did a cow start the Great Chicago Fire? · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hey everyone this is Chuck and welcome to Stuff You
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Should Know Saturday Selects I'm picking this one this week
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: from July 19th 2012 Did a cow start the Great
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Chicago Fire? You all know I love my history episodes
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: especially those where we can set some things straight that
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: history you might have gotten wrong in class at least
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: as a kid and we talk at great length today
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: about the Great Chicago Fire one of the great tragedies
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: in American history give it a listen And I hope
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: you enjoy it, and I hope you have a great weekend.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Charles W. Chuck O'Brien. I guess that makes me the cow.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: This is stuff you should know.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Daisy the cow? Mm-hmm.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Is that the aborted cow? No, that's Lizzie.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: No.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: They wouldn't have named the aborted cow Lizzie.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: That'd be bad.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Bad marketing move.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Elsa. Elsie.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Elsie?
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Apparently this cow was either Daisy, Madeline, or Gwendolyn. There's
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: been different accounts.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Well, one of the cows there wasn't even hers.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Who are we talking about?
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Maybe we should clear everybody in.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Chuck. Yes.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Have you ever seen fire? Yes.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Well, there happened to be one akin to what you saw,
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: except it was massive. As a matter of fact, Chuck,
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: let's go back in the Wayback Machine.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Oh, yes. It's been a while.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: All right. Here, blow the dust off.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Flux capacitor up.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Fluxing.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Man. Jerry hated that.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: I think it's still working. Let me press a couple
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: buttons here. All right.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Yep, yep. Okay.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: All right, let's go. Here we go. Chicago.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Wait, enter the year.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: 1871.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Let's go. Enter the date. Oh, October 8th.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: It's a Sunday.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Maybe we should go back on a Saturday and stop it.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: Nah, we're not supposed to do that. Oh, that's right.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Space time continuum and all that.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Okay, so here we are, Chuck.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: What a dump.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it smells like the death of cows and the
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: manure that they excrete. Because Chicago is a huge stockyard town,
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: if you can't tell. The World's Fair is 22 years off.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: Ghostbusters is 113 years away.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Did you just do that in your head?
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. This is just like basically the middle of nowhere,
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: temporally speaking. Is that right? Yeah. Okay. 1871, 1984 minus
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: 1871 is 113. Okay. Am I wrong? No, I think
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: it's right.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Okay. Man, we just had a math argument in Chicago
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: in the 19th century.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: You'd think we were throwing darts or something.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: So anyway, there's some things I want to point out
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: to you, Chuck. Do you see the streets are paved
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: with wood?
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and this sidewalk we're on is wooden.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and like 90% of the structure. I want you
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: to make note of that. Okay. Also, make note of
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: the temperature. It's October, and yet it's like in the
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: 80s right now.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty hot, and it was really dry this summer.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: Dry. Do you see all this dust? A lot of it, again,
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: is dry cow manure just kind of floating around. But
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: it's also because there hasn't been any rain at all.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Okay?
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Are you ready to go?
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's get out of here.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Let's have a steak first.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: A milk steak. All right. Are we back?
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: And we're back.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: Okay. So, uh, Chuck, um, that was pretty good steak.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Huh? Yeah. Nothing like a good milk steak.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: So what was about to happen, and I'm, I really
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: do feel for these people for not being able to
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: stop it, especially the 300 who are about to die.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: 300 people will die because we were too busy filling
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: our faces with steak rather than warning anybody.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: But that's the, that's the way of history.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: That's right. You can't change it.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: Um, What's about to happen is what's known as the
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: Great Chicago Fire of October 8th, 1871. 300 people will die.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: 3.5 square miles of the city will be utterly destroyed.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: 18,000 structures.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've got some stats here, if I may.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: Please.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Because you hear about the Great Chicago Fire in the 1800s.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: It's easy now to say, like, oh, yeah, that was
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: a heck of a fire.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: But, dude, it was insane how big this fire was.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: I know. The West Division... They were divided into divisions
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: back in the day.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: 194 acres burned. 500 buildings. 2,250 people homeless. South division.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: 460 acres burned. This is like where all the expensive
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: stuff was. This is where county seat, the courthouse, the newspapers,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: the law offices, the banks, all the good stuff.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: 3,650 buildings.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: 28 hotels burned. 21,000 people homeless.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: When you say buildings, you're saying utterly destroyed, burned to
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: the ground.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Yes, burned to the ground. North Division, most devastating, 1,470
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: acres burned out of the 2,500 acres in that division.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: So almost the whole division burned. 13,000 buildings burned. I'm sorry. Yeah,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: 13,000 buildings burned, 74,000 homeless in total. Because Molly, she
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: did a good job, but she really didn't hammer home
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: how severe this was. In total, 2,124 acres burned, 17,450
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: buildings burned to the ground, and almost 100,000 people, which
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: is a third of the city, were homeless. Yeah. And
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: if you go and type in Google Earth, Great Chicago Fire,
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: and hit images, it has a picture of modern-day Chicago,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: and it has in red what was the fire, and
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: it's like, It looks like 75% of the city.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: Wow, that's really neat.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really, really scary.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: And neat.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: And neat.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: The whole thing came to damages, surprisingly, for that much
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: of Chicago. I guess there wasn't a lot of valuable
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: stuff there. Just $ 192 million worth of damage.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's about $ 3. 5 billion now.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: Oh, so that's in that era? Yeah. Okay, that makes
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: a lot more sense.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: So it was a huge fire. It was an enormous fire.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: And again, like 300 people lost their lives.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's number three all time in the U.S.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: behind World Trade Center.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: And San Francisco. I'll bet. And the crazy thing about
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: this fire is just about everybody points to the same
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: location as the source. Today, back then, it was in
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: a barn at 137 DeKoven Street. And that barn did
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: happen to belong to a woman named Mrs. O'Leary, Catherine
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: Kate O'Leary.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: And Mr. O'Leary. Yeah, Mr.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: And Mrs. O'Leary and their children lived at 137 DeKoven Street.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: They had a house. They rented another house to another
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: family that was right in front of them, and then
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: behind them was the barn. And in the barn they
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: had three cows?
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: Three cows, yeah. No, five cows total, I think.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: Okay. Five cows, I believe a.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: A calf and a horse.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: Okay. And then also in this barn, wooden barn, two
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: tons of hay and two tons of coal.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: And apparently like hundreds of pounds of wood shavings, which
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: they kept to use as kindling.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: And their pyromaniac nephew in a straitjacket. It was just
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: pretty much a big accident waiting to happen. Yeah.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: And you mentioned that they owned another house, but they
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: were poor. They weren't like some rich family that owned
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: these houses. Like they were a poor family. Right.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: Mr. O'Leary, he was a laborer. I couldn't find what kind.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: They were definitely working class.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: And Mrs. O'Leary sold her milk in the neighborhood. But
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: they were on welfare, as I understand it.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And ridiculously, the Chicago Tribune claimed early on that
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: one of her motives was that she was booted off
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: of welfare when they found out, when the city found
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: out that she was selling her milk. And she was like,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: I'll get you. I'll burn the city down. Right. Which
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: is ridiculous, starting with all my stuff.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: This is the Chicago Tribune, still around today.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: The Tribune, immediately they pointed to the O'Leary's as the
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: source of the fire. It was either Mrs. O'Leary or
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: another Tribune reporter made up the idea that it was
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: possibly her cow. A guy named Michael Ahern later confessed
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: to just making up the cow story. And so Mrs.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: O'Leary's cow kicking over a lantern and setting the barn
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: on fire that started the Great Chicago Fire gained a
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: lot of traction before Ahern ever admitted to making it up,
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: I think, many years later.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, apparently he was quite the drunkard.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: A newspaper reporter in 19th century Chicago is a drunkard?
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Hard to believe. Huh. So you're right. Over the years,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: through song and legend and story, Mrs. O'Leary's cow was
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: always blamed. And if you ask people on the street,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Jay Leno style, I bet eight out of ten people
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: would say, if they have heard of the Great Chicago Fire,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: that it was started by a cow of some sort.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: And then Jay Leno's NBC lawyers would serve you with
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: cease and desist papers.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And Jay Leno would go, meh, meh, meh, meh.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: One of the other reasons that this cow has persisted
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: for so long, this cow legend, is not just because
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: it makes a great story, like a cow– Set Chicago
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: on fire.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Never really figured out who the source was.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Mrs.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: O'Leary just kind of went down in history as the villainess,
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: whether it was accidental or on purpose, or at the
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: very least the causer of the Great Chicago Fire.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: It was her barn. Yeah. No matter which way you
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: slice it. Right. Exactly.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: And this is despite like an exhaustive inquiry. I mean,
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: you were saying it's an enormous fire. Chicago burned. They
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: did a really big investigation into this. There was eleven
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: hundred pages of testimony taken, all taken by shorthand of
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: some court stenographer took it all by hand. Oh, man.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: And they still never figured it out. But history has
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: shown us possibly who the culprit was. But let's talk
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: about Mrs. O'Leary first and why she may or may
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: not have been culpable.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: Okay. She testified that her neighbors, was it in the
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: house that they were renting from her?
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the McLaughlins in the house in front of hers. Okay. Yes.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: She said they threw a big party. They were all partying.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: And some of them went into my barn to get
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: milk for milk steak.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: For oysters. Either oysters or a punch that required milk,
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: you know? A milk punch.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: I looked it up. Milk punch is a thing.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: It's sugar and vanilla and bourbon and milk.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, there's a lot of different milk punches.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: It sounds disgusting.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: It's got the bourbon in it.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just drink the bourbon. Right. And milk with oysters
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: sounds really disgusting, too.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was really curious what that's like. But, I mean,
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: think about oysters Rockefeller. It's cheesy. I mean, what's cheese
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: if not milk at its heart?
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't like the Rockefeller, though. I'll just go raw.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: I like it both ways.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Do you like them fried?
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah, I'll eat oysters pretty much anyway, as long
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: as they're good. Yeah.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: All right. So anyway, Mrs. O'Leary contends that the partiers, uh,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: the revelers went into her barn seeking milk for some
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: odd meal time or drink time.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: We're sitting there milking the cow. We're like, Oh, I'm
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: so wasted.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: And then kicked over a lantern, right?
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Either kicked over a lantern or, uh, you know, was
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: smoking out there. Something happened. They don't know. Um, There
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: was another suggestion as recently as 2004 that Bela's comet
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: split into pieces that night and chunks of it set
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: fires in various points all over the Midwest on the
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: same night.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: Which is not possible.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Not possible. Scientists say that when a comet enters our atmosphere,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: it's not going to be, what, hot enough? A meteorite to...
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Set a fire? Right.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: It's going to cool down too much to be able
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: to set a fire by the time it makes contact
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: with the ground.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: So how does this have traction in 04? Do you know?
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: I couldn't find that.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Fringe?
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: I would imagine a Bigfoot expert.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So those are a couple of the other theories.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: What about Mrs. O'Leary herself?
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Oh, well, they said that she was out there. milking
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: the cows at night and she said no i was asleep.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: She was asleep with a sore foot and the piece
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: of evidence that probably exonerates her more than any other
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: is that none of her stuff was insured.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Well yeah exactly like i said earlier why would she
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: burn down especially in retribution for being put off welfare
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: why would she burn her house.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: Down her livelihood her livelihood down possibly killing her her
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: her family cows which is like tantamount to killing the
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: goose that laid the golden egg.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The fact that it wasn't insured, it doesn't matter
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: what kind of person she is right out the window.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: Nobody is going to do that on purpose. No. So
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: at the very least, she didn't do it on purpose.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Correct.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: But she also probably didn't do it on accident either.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: She probably really was in bed with a sore foot.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: No one saw her. There were no reports of any
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: of her being around the barn.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Right. And how did Mr. O'Leary escape all this?
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: I wonder if he was at work or something.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: I guess she was really strongly associated with the cow.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, you always only hear about her. Yeah. Mr.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: O'Leary's just like, I guess he enjoyed his anonymity.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: Well, she did, too.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: You're just like, it's her.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: As you find later on.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: My cow.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: Right, exactly. He just didn't even say anything. She's like,
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: say something.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: What?
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: I don't want to be in the papers.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: So where are we then?
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: So Mrs. O'Leary, we're going to go ahead and just
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: kind of exonerate her at this point.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Agreed. Which officially happened in 1997. Right.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: There was a guy named Louis M. Cone who went
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: on to great wealth in Chicago. And later on, after
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: he died, somebody came forward, I think in the 40s,
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: and said, remember Louis Cone? He told me that when
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: he was 18, he was gambling in the O'Leary's barn
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: with one of the O'Leary boys.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: Which kind of holds water because James O'Leary went on
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: to become one of the biggest gambling bosses in Chicago.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Oh, really?
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: One of the sons. And we kicked over a lantern
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: accidentally and set the place on fire, and we accidentally
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: started the Chicago fire. Well, this guy was apparently kind
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: of a boastful type, so it's possible that he made
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: it up. Right.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Because he even said I was winning at the time.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: Like he bragged about it.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So you've got all these people, and none of
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: them really, though, can hold a candle, even Mrs. O'Leary herself. Right.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: To one Daniel Pegleg Sullivan.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Why do they call him Pegleg?
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: For a very good reason. He had one wooden leg.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: It went clop, clop, clop.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: That's right. And he testified. He testified and it sort
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: of became a case of thou doth protest too much, sir.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: Because he made up this story.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: Well, remember in the lying episode, it's like when you
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: add stuff that doesn't need to be in there, it's
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: usually a pretty good sign. And I'll bet he didn't
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: use any contractions when he gave his testimony.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: He did not, sir.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: And he's like, you want to know, I can't believe
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: you want to know why. I was sitting on the
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: curb in front of someone else's house.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: You want to know? Then I will tell you.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: But I can't believe you want to know.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: In the meantime, he's cooking this little story up. Yeah.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: He testified that he had gone to visit the O'Leary's
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: about eight o'clock that night, said Miss O'Leary was in bed. Again,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: I mentioned Mr. O'Leary at all. After the visit, he
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: apparently went to go home. See, this is what I
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: don't get. It says that he started for home, but
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: then later it says he passed his home.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: And to smoke a pipe in front of William White's home.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: William White's house.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Said, I'm just going to go have a little pipe smoke.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: For some reason, I'm going to walk by my house
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: to do it.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: In front of Willie White's house.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: Do you know why? Here's why he said that. Because
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: that places him near enough the fire that he could
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: reasonably say he saw it. Yeah. But not so close
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: to the McLaughlin's house. Like his house was closer to
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: the McLaughlin's. A partier could have been like, I didn't
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: see you there. And I was standing right outside looking
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: in front of your house.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Very clever, Mr. Pegleg. He claims that he spotted the
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: fire and ran for help screaming fire 193 feet with
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: his pegleg and tried to extinguish the fire and then
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: escaped to the burning barn.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: Freeing animals, too. He freed the animals.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Oh, really? Mm-hmm.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: And he actually did do that.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Oh, he did?
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so this guy was there. He was around the fire.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: But the problem is, is placing him on the curb
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: in front of William White's house.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: Has some real problems. So no one disputes that this
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: guy was near the fire, but exactly where that was
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: changes everything. Right. So he was a pig-legged man, so
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: he couldn't... He couldn't run fast.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: No, and certainly not close to 200 feet.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: No one heard anybody shouting fire alongside the house. Right.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: Definitely not him. So he definitely didn't. Another problem was
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: that his mother kept a cow in the O'Leary barn,
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: and he admitted to frequently visiting the cow in the evenings.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Oh, really? Yeah.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: And then it's also possible that another man named, um,
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: Dan Dennis Regan was present and was something of an
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: accomplice or at least a sympathetic witness to peg leg.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: Right. Because he had another part of the story that
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: didn't quite add up. He was about a block away, uh,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: in his home. Uh, and he testified that he heard
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: someone yelling fire, jumped out of bed to help. But
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: Richard Bales, this attorney, modern day attorney, For a title
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: insurance company in Chicago is one that dug this all up,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: pieced it together and said, how would this guy a
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: block away have heard this? Right. And none of the
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: other people, the O'Leary's especially, not have heard this.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: Not only that, he got his hands on the property
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: diagrams of the area at the time and mapped it
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: out and placed Pegleg where he said he was and
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: showed that he would have had to have been able
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: to look clear through a two story house to see
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: the barn. So there's no way he could have seen
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: that it was on fire from where he said he
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: was sitting. So the fact that... this guy confabulated all
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: of this story suggests that he may have done it.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: And probably what he did was he was visiting his
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: mother's cow.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Decided to have a smoke afterward.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: And accidentally set the barn on fire. Yep. The lawyer,
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: Richard Bales, is very He said it was probably an accident,
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: but that once he saw that he pretty much burned
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: a third of the city of Chicago down, he just
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: kind of kept his mouth shut and let Mrs. O'Leary
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: take the fall.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, once that rumor circulated, I'm sure he was like, yeah,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: that's how it went down all right.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: Pretty crazy.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: I was there. So I think I feel bad for
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: the guy. He's there, probably starts this fire, probably gets
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: out of hand and freaks out.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: And he frees the animals first before leaving.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: Frees the animals, kind soul. And in the end, they
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: couldn't put out the fire for some of the reasons
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: you talked about earlier. All the wood, the dryness, the
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: lack of rain.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: There was a strong wind. Did you notice the strong
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: wind when we visited Chicago?
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: I don't know if they did, but it was strong, Josh.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: 56 miles of wooden streets, 560 miles of wooden sidewalks,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: and only about 200 firemen in the whole city. There
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: was about a 16-acre fire the night before that they'd
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: put out.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: Right. Well, it had started the... They had fought it
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: all through the night before and into Sunday afternoon.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, okay.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: So most of these guys hadn't, like, eaten or slept
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: in the fire brigade.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: Damaged their equipment in some cases.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: Then some of the fire engines went to the wrong
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: address to begin with. Right.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: There was a guy whose job it was to look
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: out for fires. Like, he sat in basically a crow's
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: nest in the courthouse.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Fire watcher.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: You're right. And he didn't see it for a while.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: He finally did, but he picked the wrong department to activate. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah,
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: like the wrong little segment that he was supposed to guess,
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: and so some people went to the wrong place first,
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: and it took a little while to correct it, so
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: there was some confusion.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: So that happened too, and then apparently the fire destroyed
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: the building that housed the water pumps for the city,
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: and then they tried to get water from Lake Michigan,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: and that didn't work out so well, and all these
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: things added up to the third biggest fire disaster in
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: the nation's history.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: And like you said, the Lonkhead idea of connecting... The
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: wooden buildings with the wooden streets and wooden sidewalks. Yeah. That,
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: I think, fell out of fashion pretty quick after the
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: Chicago fire.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: I bet. And people smoking on the streets. Well, that
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: probably didn't fall.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: Out of fashion. Keeping two tons of hay and two
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: tons of coal.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: And apparently it burned, what, through the following evening? And then, thankfully,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: it finally rained and that helped put it out. And
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: that is a great Chicago fire.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: Do you want to hear an irony of it all?
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: I'd love to.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: The O'Leary house was spared.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: No way.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: Yep. It was not burned.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: So it just took off in one direction from the barn? Yeah. Interesting.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: And now the O'Leary's house, the house they rent to
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: the McLaughlins, William White's house, all that stuff is gone. Sure.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: And in its place is the Chicago Fire Department's training academy.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: And they have a Maltese cross on the floor. They
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: have a cross on the floor that marks the spot
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: where the barn stood.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: I thought you were going to say like a CVS.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: No. No, it's very appropriately, it's the fire department.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: Did they do that there on purpose?
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: I believe so.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: That would have just been too much of a coincidence.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: And then Mrs. O'Leary really did not like the, well,
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: she didn't like the limelight, I get the impression anyway,
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: but she really didn't like being, you know, treated like
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: this horrible person.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: And she was not shy about taking a broom to
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: people like reporters who came to her doorstep. And she
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: also chased off a representative of P.T. Barnum's. Oh, really?
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: And he sent somebody to go offer a job traveling
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: with his circus.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: As, like, the scapegoat?
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: I guess, yeah.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: They would bring out a cow and her and.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: Oh, no, we forgot to mention, she had a pretty
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: healthy beard.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: What? It's like, man, she's in the wrong line of work.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it would have gone right up with the fire.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: Her house was spared, but her beard burned off.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's good.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, that's the Chicago fire. You said she was exonerated, right?
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she was exonerated officially.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: Thanks to Richard Bale's work.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, 1997. And I had something else. Oh, I think
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: it's just remarkable that, did you have the number that
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: 300 people died? I've seen varying accounts, but that's the
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: max that I've heard. And it's just amazing that that
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: much of the city burned and 18,000 buildings burned down.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Like you hear about a fire today that hits like
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: three buildings on a block in a city. It's a
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: huge deal.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: I'm surprised only 300 people died.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: It's pretty remarkable. And that's a lot, but I'm surprised
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: it wasn't, you know, like 5,000 people.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: They always say God loves Chicago.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Except when it comes to the Cubs.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true. If you want to learn more about Mrs. O'Leary,
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: her cow, the Great Chicago Fire, fires in general... Anything.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: You can type whatever you want into the search bar
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: at HowStuffWorks.com. I said search bar, and that is time
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: for listener mail. But first... Okay, listen to me now.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: Josh, I'm going to call this A Fish Called Ganja.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: You're getting pretty good today with those.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: I appreciate that. Hey, guys, I'm a tender of bar
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: in the fair city of New York, and one of
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: my regulars turned me on to your podcast a few
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: short months ago. He even gave the guy's name, but
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to read it.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: It's so funny when they put it like that. Like, hey, man,
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: turn me on to that podcast. Yeah, like in a
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: back alley. Yeah.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Since then, I've been playing catch-up and listening to as
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: many episodes as I can on a daily basis to
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: quench my thirst for knowledge. I currently live near Philly
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: with my wife and new daughter, but I sling drinks
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: in New York. Before I'd been turned on to y'all,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: I dreaded my two-hour commute. Now I look forward to
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: it and have managed to listen to 192 episodes.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: Nice. That's some dedication.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: That's hardcore. Several years ago, my uncle decided to purchase
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: a new saltwater aquarium and ended up purchasing an enormous
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: 150-gallon unit. He bought the tank online from a reputable website,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: but to save money, he purchased most of the accoutrements,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: including lighting, fish, coral, and plant life from a local
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: pet store. This is where it gets good, because the
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: lighting he purchased was a special type of lamp, also
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: very commonly used in grow houses. He must have been
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: flagged by the DEA at the moment of sale, because
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: about a month later, after the tank was finished on
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: a Tuesday evening, my uncle, my aunt, and three cousins,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: all under the age of seven, were sitting down to dinner,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: In an instant, six fully armed DEA agents burst into
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: the house, including the front door, back door, and from
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: the garage and proceeded to scream things along the lines
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: of on the floor, hands behind your head. They even
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: held my aunt and uncle at gunpoint while they looked
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: around the house. After searching from top to bottom, realizing
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: they'd made a huge mistake, they calmly apologized and left.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: I'm not 100% sure if the lawyers were involved. But
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: I believe my family received a handsome compensation for the mistake.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: I'll bet.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: And that is from Ben, the bartender. And he has
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: a hookup for us in New York if we want
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: to have an event at a bar.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: Nice.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: Hang on to that email.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: You want me to do that again sometime soon?
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: I know. We miss you, New York. All of our
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: work travel has been on the West Coast.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And a certain other city.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: So let's see. What else? I can't top that. I can't.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: Send your other misinformed DEA stories.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: How about anyone that has any Chicago Fire, like I
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: always wondered about the O'Leary's, if their family line continues.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, lore.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so if you have any family members that had
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: anything to do with the Chicago Fire, we'd love to
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: know about it.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: I don't even know why I'm here anymore. You just
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: take it, Chuck.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics visit
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: HowStuffWorks.com