WEBVTT - SYSK Selects: Did a cow start the Great Chicago Fire? 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:03.600 M Hey everyone, this is Chuck and welcome to Stuff 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:06.520 You Should Know Saturday selects. UM picking this one this 0:00:06.519 --> 0:00:10.039 week from July twelve. Did a cow start the Great 0:00:10.080 --> 0:00:14.000 Chicago Fire? Uh? You all know I love my history episodes, 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:18.000 especially those where we can set something straight that history 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:21.440 you might have gotten wrong um in class, at least 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:24.880 as a kid. And uh we talk a great length 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:27.560 today about the Great Chicago Fire, one of the great 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:32.159 tragedies in American history. UM, give it a listen, and 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:33.760 I hope you enjoy it. I hope you have a 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:43.960 great weekend. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House 0:00:43.960 --> 0:00:52.480 Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:52.520 --> 0:00:57.680 I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck O'Brien. Uh. I 0:00:57.720 --> 0:01:01.920 guess that makes me the cow. That's the stuff you 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:06.400 should know. Daisy the cow? Is that the boarding count? No, 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:10.200 that's Lizzie. No, they wouldn't have named the boring cow Lizzie. 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:15.560 That'd be bad ad marketing move. Elsie. Yeah, apparently this 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:19.120 cow was either Daisy, Madaline or Gwendoline. There's been different accounts. Well, 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:22.280 one of the counts there wasn't even hers. Who's who 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:24.280 are we talking about? Maybe we should clear everybody in 0:01:24.480 --> 0:01:31.800 um Chuck, have you ever seen fire? Yes, well there 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:35.640 happened to be one akin to what you saw, except 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:39.039 there was massive as a matter of fact, Chuck, let's 0:01:39.080 --> 0:01:42.240 go back in the way back machine. Oh yes, it's 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:44.840 been a while. All right, here, blow blow the dust 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:52.800 off flex capacitor of flexing man Jerry hated that. I 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:55.200 think it's still working. Let me press a couple of buttons. 0:01:55.200 --> 0:02:01.320 Here's all right, all right, here we go in Chicago. 0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:07.440 End of the year, Oh yeah, eighteens. Anymore, let's go 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:11.640 the end of the date, October eight. It's a Sunday. 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:13.960 Maybe we should go back on a Saturday and stop it. 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:17.320 I'm not supposed to do that, that's right. Contract, it's 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:20.280 based on continuing yet. Okay, so here we are, Chuck, 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:24.320 what a dump? Yeah, it smells like the death of 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:29.239 cows and the manure. Can't they excrete? Because Chicago is 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:31.680 a huge stock carreed town. If you can't tell the 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:37.600 World's Fair is twenty two years off, Ghostbusters is a 0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:41.480 hundred and thirteen years away. Did you just do that 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:43.959 in your head that this is just like basically the 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:49.120 middle of nowhere? Temporally speaking, it's yeah, okay, eighteen seventy 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:53.440 one four mins. Eighteen seventy one is a thirteen? Okay? 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:57.320 Am I wrong? No? I think it's right. Okay, man, 0:02:57.320 --> 0:02:59.560 we just had a math argument and I can't do 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:02.720 then cargo in the nineteenth century. You think we're throwing 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:06.160 darts or something. So anyway, there's there's some there's some 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:07.760 things I want to point out to you, Chuck. Do 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:11.400 you see the streets are paved with wood? Yeah, and 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:15.880 the sidewalk we're on is wooden. Yeah, and like the 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:18.600 structures around here all would everything's would. I want you 0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:22.880 to make note of that. Also make note of the temperature. 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:26.680 It's October, and yet it's like in the eighties, right, 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:28.600 it's pretty hot and it's been really it was really 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:30.720 dry this summer. Dry. Do you see all this dust? 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:33.959 A lot of it again is dry cow manure just 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:37.920 kind of floating around? Um. But it's also it's because 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:41.560 there there hasn't been any rain at all. Okay, yeah, 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:43.680 are you ready again? Yeah, let's get out of here. 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:50.720 Is that a steak first? The milk steak? All right? 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:55.280 Are we back? And we're back? Okay? Okay, So Chuck, um, 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:57.960 that's pretty good steak. Huh yeah, nothing like a good 0:03:58.000 --> 0:04:00.920 milk steak. So what was about to happen? And I 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:03.880 really do feel for these people for not being able 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:06.320 to stop it, especially the three hundred who are about 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:08.480 to die. Three hundred people will die because we were 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:12.960 too busy filling our faces with steak rather than warning anybody. 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:16.960 But that's the that's the way of history. That's right. 0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:20.120 You can't change it. Um. What's about to happen is 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:25.479 what's known as the Great Chicago Fire of October eight um. 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:29.440 Three people will die, three point five square miles of 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:33.440 the city will be utterly destroyed, eighteen thousand structures. Yeah, 0:04:33.480 --> 0:04:36.560 I've got some stats here if I may please. Because 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:39.320 you hear about the Great Chicago Fire in the eight hundreds, 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:40.800 is easy now to say you're like, oh, yeah, that 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:44.719 was the heck of fire. But dude, it was insane 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:48.920 how big this fire was. I know the West Division 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:52.000 they were divided into two divisions back in the day. 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:58.480 Hundred acres burned. Uh, five buildings, two thousand, two hundred 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:02.520 and fifty people homeless. South Division four hundred and sixty 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:06.640 acres burned. Uh. This is like where all the expensive 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:10.200 stuff was. This is where March County seat, the courthouse, 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:13.760 the newspapers, the lofts, is the banks, all the good stuff. 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:20.840 Thirty six hundred fifty buildings, hotels, twenty one thousand people homeless. 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:24.360 When you say buildings, you're saying utterly destroyed, burned to 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:28.039 the ground, burned to the ground. UM North Division most devastating. 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:32.400 Four hundred and seventy acres burned out of the two thousand, 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:34.960 five hundred acres in that division, so almost the whole 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:41.120 division burned. Uh, thirteen thousand buildings burned. I'm sorry, Yeah, 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:44.320 thirteen thousand buildings burned, seventy four thousand homeless in total. 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:47.000 Because Molly, she did a good job, but she really 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:50.120 didn't hammer home how severe this was. In total, two 0:05:50.160 --> 0:05:55.239 thousand one four acres burned, UM, seventeen thousand, four hundred 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:57.880 fifty buildings burned to the ground, and almost a hundred 0:05:57.920 --> 0:06:01.400 thousand people, which is a third of this city. We're homeless. 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:06.200 And if you go and type in Google Earth Great 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:08.720 Chicago Fire and hit images, it has a picture of 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:12.880 modern day Chicago and it hasn't read what was the fire, 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:17.240 and it's like it looks like in the city. Wow, 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:20.919 that's really neat. Yeah, it's really really scary and neat 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:25.200 and neat. So the whole thing came to damage is 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:28.520 surprisingly for that much of Chicago. Um, I guess there 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:31.279 wasn't a lot of valuable stuff there, just a hundred 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:35.240 and ninety two million dollars worth of damage, which three 0:06:35.279 --> 0:06:38.520 and a half billion. Now, oh so that's in that 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:41.760 that eras Yeah, okay, yeah, that's okay, that makes a 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:44.440 lot more sense. Um. So it was a huge fire. 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:46.600 It was an enormous fire. And again like three people 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:48.839 lost their lives. Yeah, it was. I think it's number 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:52.440 three all time in the US, behind World Trade Center 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:57.760 and um or San Francisco, San Francisco. And uh. The 0:06:57.839 --> 0:07:00.440 crazy thing about this fire is just about every buddy 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:04.440 points to the same location as the source today. Back 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:07.680 then it was um in a barn at one three 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:11.120 seven to Covid Street. And that barn did happen to 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:15.280 belong to a woman named Mrs O'Leary, Katherine Kate O'Leary 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:18.040 and Mr H. Leary. Yeah. Mr and Mrs O'Leary and 0:07:18.040 --> 0:07:21.880 their children, um lived at one seven to Covid Street. 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:24.960 They had a house. They rented another house to another 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:26.560 family that was right in front of them, and then 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:29.120 behind them was the barn. And in the barn they 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:34.040 had three cows. Three cows, yeah, no, five cows total 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:38.679 I think, okay, five cows I believe a calfine horse. 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:43.119 And then also in this barn, wooden barn, two tons 0:07:43.160 --> 0:07:46.680 of hay and two tons of coal and apparently like 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:49.800 hundreds of pounds of wood shavings which they kept to 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:54.640 use as kindling, and their pyromaniac nephew in a straight jacket. 0:07:56.440 --> 0:07:58.680 It was just pretty much a big accident waiting and 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:01.120 a halfpen. Yeah, and you meant that they owned another house. 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:04.400 But they were poor. They weren't like some rich family 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:06.920 that owned these houses. Like they were poor family. Right. 0:08:07.080 --> 0:08:09.640 Mr O'Leary, he was a laborer. I couldn't find what 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:12.960 kind he was. They were definitely working class. And Mrs 0:08:13.000 --> 0:08:15.960 O'Leary um sold her milk in the neighborhood. But they 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:19.200 were on welfare as I understand it. Yeah, and ridiculously 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:23.080 the Chicago Chicago Tribune claimed early on that one of 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:26.040 her motives was that she was booted off of welfare 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:27.640 when they found out when the city found out that 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:29.960 she was selling her milk and she was like, I'll 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:33.680 get you. I'll burn the city down right, and um, 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:36.600 which is starting with all my stuff? This is the 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:42.000 Chicago Tribune still around today, Um, the Tribune. Immediately they 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:46.080 pointed to the O'Leary's as the source of the fire. 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:50.559 It was either Mrs O'Leary or another Tribune reporter made 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:52.760 up the idea that it was possibly her cow. A 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:56.960 guy named Michael ahearn Um later confessed to just making 0:08:57.080 --> 0:09:01.040 up the cow story. And so Mrs O'Leary cow kicking 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:03.360 over a lantern and setting the barn on fire that 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:06.679 started the Great Chicago Fire gained a lot of traction 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:10.160 before Um ahearn ever admitted to making it up. I 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:15.160 think in many years later. Apparently he was quite the 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:20.400 drunkard of newspaper reporter in nineteenth century Chicago is a drunkard, 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:25.920 so you're right. Over the years, through song and legend 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:29.240 and story, Mrs o leary's cow was always blamed. And 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:33.120 if you ask people on the street Jay Leno style, 0:09:34.320 --> 0:09:37.120 I bet eight out of ten people would say, if 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:39.080 they have heard of the Great Chicago Fire, that it 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:41.360 was started by a a cow of some sort. And 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:44.400 then jay Leno's NBC lawyers would serve you with cease 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:48.840 and desist papers, and Jay Len will go. Um. One 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:51.880 of the other reasons that this cow has persisted for 0:09:51.920 --> 0:09:54.000 so long, this cow leg And it's not just because 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:56.280 it's like it makes a great story, like a cow 0:09:56.440 --> 0:10:00.400 set Chicago on fire, um, but also because they never 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:04.040 really figured out who the source was. Mrs o'learys just 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:08.240 kind of went down um in history as this as 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:14.280 the villainous whether it was accidental or on purpose or 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:17.000 at the very least the causer of the Great Chicago Fire. 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:19.480 It was her barn. Yeah, no matter which way slice 0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:22.240 it right exactly. UM. And this was despite like an 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:25.880 exhaustive inquiry. I mean you were saying, it's an enormous fire, 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:30.720 Chicago burned. They did a really big investigation into this. 0:10:30.960 --> 0:10:34.480 There was eleven hundred pages of testimony taken, all taken 0:10:34.520 --> 0:10:39.600 by shorthand of some court stenographer took it all by hand. Um. 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:42.760 And they still never figured it out. But history has 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:47.800 shown us possibly who the culprit was. But let's talk 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:50.600 about UM. Let's talk about Mrs O'Leary first and why 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:54.600 she may or may not have been culpable. Um. She 0:10:54.880 --> 0:10:58.840 testified that her neighbors and was it in the house 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:01.080 that they were renting from her and the McLaughlin's in 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:03.920 the house in front of hers um. She said, they 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:07.360 threw a big party. They're all partying, and some of 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:11.600 them went into my barn to get milk for milksteak 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:17.160 for oysters. Oysters or a punch that required milk. Yeah, 0:11:17.480 --> 0:11:19.720 a milk punch. I looked it up. Milk punches. The thing. 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:22.880 It's so sugar and vanilla and bourbon and milk, which 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:25.679 sounds well, there's a lot of different milk punches. That 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:29.840 sounds disgusting. It's got the bourbon in it. Yeah, just 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:34.120 drink the bourbon and milk with the oysters. Sounds really disgusted. Yeah, 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:37.160 it was really curious what that's like. But I mean oysters, 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:40.600 rocket feller, it's cheesy. I mean, what's cheese if not 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:42.800 milk at its heart? Yeah, I don't like the rocket 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:45.559 feller though, I'll just go raw. I like it both ways. Really, 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:48.680 Oh yeah, do you like him fried? Um? Yeah? Only 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:51.440 oysters pretty much anyway, as long as they're good. Yeah, 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:54.760 all right, So anyway, Mrs o Leary contends that the 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:58.240 party or's the revelers went into her barn seeking milk 0:11:58.960 --> 0:12:02.439 for some odd meal time or drink time. We're sitting 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:06.000 there milking the cow. We're like, oh, I'm so wasted exactly, 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:08.439 And then kicked over a lantern, right, either kicked over 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:13.120 a lantern or you know, it was smoking out there. 0:12:13.360 --> 0:12:17.479 Something happened, they don't know. Um. There was another suggestion 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:22.720 as recently it's two thousand four, that Bila's comment split 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:26.320 into pieces that night, and chunks of it set fires 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:29.160 in various points all over the Midwest on the same night, 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:32.800 which is not possible. Not possible. A scientists say that 0:12:33.320 --> 0:12:35.920 when a comment enters our atmosphere, it's not going to 0:12:36.040 --> 0:12:39.800 be what hot enough a meteorite to set a fire, right, 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:42.800 it's gonna cool down too much to to be able 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:44.760 to set a fire by the time it makes contact 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:46.800 with the ground. So how do this abtraction in oh Ford? 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:54.040 You know, I couldn't find that fringe a big foot expert. Yeah. Um, 0:12:54.120 --> 0:12:57.439 so those are a couple of the other theories. Um, 0:12:56.840 --> 0:13:02.480 what about Mrs O'Leary herself. Oh well, they said that 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:05.200 she was out there milking the cows at night, and 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:07.280 she said, no, I was asleep. She was asleep with 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:10.400 a sore foot. And the piece of evidence that probably 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:15.960 exonerates her more than any other is that none of 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:20.440 her stuff was insured. Well, yeah, exactly like I said earlier. 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:24.160 Why would she burn down, especially in retribution for being 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:26.560 put off welfare? Why would she burn her house down, 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:30.760 her livelihood or livelihood down, possibly killing her her her 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:34.360 family cows, which is like tantamount to killing the goose 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:38.800 that lay the golden egg. Um. Yeah, the fact that 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:40.880 I wasn't insured. It doesn't matter what kind of person 0:13:40.960 --> 0:13:43.440 she is. Right out the window, nobody is going to 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:45.840 do that on purpose. So at the very least she 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:48.679 didn't do it on purpose, correct, But she also probably 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:51.480 didn't do it on accident either. She probably really was 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:53.280 in bed with the sore foot. No one saw her. 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:56.120 There were no reports of any of her being around 0:13:56.160 --> 0:13:59.200 the barn. Right, And how did Mr Leary escape all this? 0:14:00.800 --> 0:14:02.280 I don't know. I wonder if he was at work 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:06.240 or something. I guess she was really strongly associated with 0:14:06.280 --> 0:14:08.719 the cow. I mean, yeah, you always only hear about her. 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:13.000 Mr o Leary is just like I guess he enjoyed 0:14:13.000 --> 0:14:16.760 his anonymity. Well she did too, just like her as 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:20.200 you find later on right exactly. He just didn't even 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:23.120 say anything. She's like, say something, what I don't want 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:52.680 to be in the papers? So where are we then? 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:56.120 So Mrs O'Leary, we're gonna go ahead and just kind 0:14:56.120 --> 0:15:00.760 of exonerate her at this point, which officially happened in right, 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:04.840 there was a guy named Lewis M. Cone who went 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:08.800 on to Great Wealth in Chicago. Uh and later on 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:12.520 he after he died, somebody came forward, I think in 0:15:12.560 --> 0:15:16.240 the forties and said, remember Lewis Cone. He told me 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:18.960 that when he was eighteen, he was gambling in the 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:22.440 O'Leary's barn with one of the O'Leary boys, which kind 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:25.200 of holds water because James O'Leary went on to become 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:28.040 one of the biggest gambling bosses in Chicago, one of 0:15:28.080 --> 0:15:31.840 the Sun's um and we kicked over a land and 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:34.160 accidentally and set the set the place on fire, and 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:37.000 we accidentally started the Chicago Fire. Oh. This guy was 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:39.640 apparently kind of a boastful type, so it's possible that 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:42.800 he made it up. Even said I was winning at 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:46.120 the time, like he bragged about it. Yeah, so you've 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:48.440 got all these people and none of them really though, 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:51.680 can hold the candle. Even Mrs A Leer herself to 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:58.120 one Daniel peg leg Sullivan leg for a very good reason. 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:02.440 He had one wooden leg and then went clop clop clop. 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:07.400 That's right. And he testified, he testified, and it sort 0:16:07.400 --> 0:16:09.800 of became a case of that doth protest too much, sir, 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:12.400 because he made up the story. We'll remember in the 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:15.480 lying episode. It's like when you add stuff that I 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:18.280 need to be in there, it's usually a pretty good sign. 0:16:18.440 --> 0:16:20.600 And I'll bet he didn't use any contractions when he 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:23.160 gave his testimony. He did not. And he's like, you 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:25.680 want to know. I can't believe you want to know 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:30.320 why I was sitting on the curb in front of 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:33.200 someone else's You want to know, then I will tell you, 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:35.960 But I can't believe you want to know. In the meantime, 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:39.040 he's cooking this little story up. He testified that he 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:42.160 had gone to visit the Olearies about eight o'clock that night, 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:46.560 said Ms O'Leary was in bed um. Again I mentioned 0:16:46.680 --> 0:16:50.520 Mr O'Leary at all. After the visit, he apparently start 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:54.040 went to go home. See this is one I don't 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:55.680 get it says that he started for home, but then 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:59.080 later it says he passed his home and to smoke 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:02.840 a pipe in front of house. So I'm just gonna 0:17:02.880 --> 0:17:05.280 go have a little pipe smoke for some reason, I'm 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:07.800 gonna walk by my house to do it in front 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:10.280 of Willie White's house. Do you know why. Here's why 0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:15.439 he said that, because that places him near enough the 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:18.840 fire that he could reasonably say he saw it, but 0:17:19.080 --> 0:17:21.960 not so close to the McLaughlin's house. Like his house 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:25.840 was closer to the McLaughlins. You could have been like, 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:28.000 I didn't see you there, and I was standing right 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:30.920 outside looking at in front of your house. Very clever, mr, 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:34.359 Mr peg leg um. He claims that he spotted the 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:39.359 fire and ran for help, screaming fire a hundred and 0:17:39.400 --> 0:17:44.560 ninety three ft with his peg leg um and tried 0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:48.320 to extinguish the fire and then escaped to the burning barn, 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:53.040 freeing animals too. He freed the animals and he actually 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:56.639 did do that. Yes, so this guy was there. He was, 0:17:56.800 --> 0:17:59.879 he was around the fire. But the problem is is 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:04.119 placing him on the curb in front of William White's 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:08.080 house has some real problem. So no one disputes that 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:11.440 this guy was near the fire, but exactly where that 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:16.000 was changes everything. So he was a pig leg pig 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:19.240 legged man, so he couldn't um. He couldn't run fast 0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:24.280 and certainly not closet. No one heard anybody shouting fire 0:18:25.480 --> 0:18:29.679 alongside the house. It's definitely not him, so he definitely 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:35.440 didn't um. Another problem was that he his mother kept 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:39.760 a cow in the O'Leary barn, and he admitted to 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:45.200 frequently visiting the cow in the evenings. Really yeah, okay. 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:49.480 And then it's also possible that another man named um 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:54.399 Dan Dennis Reagan was present. It was something of an 0:18:54.400 --> 0:18:58.800 accomplice or at least a sympathetic witness to peg Leg 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:02.040 because he had another part of the story that didn't 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:04.800 quite add up. He was about a block away in 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:09.040 his home, ah and he testified that he heard someone 0:19:09.119 --> 0:19:12.960 yelling fire jumped out of bed to help. But Richard Balees, 0:19:13.080 --> 0:19:16.840 this attorney modern day attorney for a title insurance coming 0:19:16.840 --> 0:19:19.080 in Chicago's one that dug this all up, pieced it 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:21.480 together and said, how would this guy block away have 0:19:21.560 --> 0:19:24.480 heard this? And none of the other people, the aleries 0:19:24.560 --> 0:19:27.200 especially not have heard this. Not only that he got 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:32.560 his hands on the property diagrams of the area at 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:35.720 the time and mapped it out and placed peg leg 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:39.200 where he said he was and showed that he would 0:19:39.200 --> 0:19:41.480 have had to have been able to look clear through 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:44.480 a two story house to see the barn. There's no 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:46.359 way he could have seen that it was on fire 0:19:46.600 --> 0:19:49.879 from where he said he was sitting. So the fact 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:54.960 that this guy confabulated all of this story suggests that 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:57.760 he may have done it. And probably what he did 0:19:57.880 --> 0:20:00.840 was he was visiting his mother's cow, decided to have 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:05.080 a smoke afterward, and um accidentally set the barn on fire. 0:20:05.960 --> 0:20:09.600 The lawyer Richard Bales is very understanding. He said it 0:20:09.640 --> 0:20:11.919 was probably an accident, but that once he saw that 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:14.760 he pretty much burned a third of the city of 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:19.800 Chicago down. Um, he just kind of kept his mouth 0:20:19.840 --> 0:20:22.000 shut and let Mrs O'Leary take the full Yeah, once 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:25.400 that rumor circulated, I'm sure he was like, yeah, that's 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:28.840 how it went down, Alright. I was there, So I 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:32.560 think I feel bad for the guy. He's there, probably 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:36.720 starts his fire, probably gets out of hand and freaks out, 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:43.440 and the animals first kind soul and uh, in the end, 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:46.240 they couldn't put out the fire for some of the 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:51.000 reasons you talked about earlier. All the wood, Um, the dryness. 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:53.720 There was a strong wind. Did you notice the strong 0:20:53.760 --> 0:20:56.200 wind when we visited Chicago. I don't know if they did, 0:20:56.240 --> 0:20:59.480 but it was strong, josh Um, fifty six miles a 0:20:59.480 --> 0:21:03.040 wooden street eats five d sixty miles of wooden sidewalks 0:21:03.080 --> 0:21:06.000 and only about two firemen in the whole city. That 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:09.600 was about a sixteen acre fire. The night before that 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:14.640 they had put out, and well it had started the 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:17.040 they had fought it all through the night before and 0:21:17.160 --> 0:21:20.520 into the Sunday afternoon. So most of these guys hadn't 0:21:20.520 --> 0:21:23.520 like eaten or slept, and the fire the fire brigade 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:27.399 damaged their equipment in some cases. Um. Then some of 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:30.120 the fire engines went to the wrong address to begin with. Right, 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:32.120 there was a guy whose job it was to look 0:21:32.160 --> 0:21:34.600 out for fires, like he sat in a basically a 0:21:34.640 --> 0:21:38.040 crows nest in the courthouse fire watcher. You're right, and um, 0:21:38.200 --> 0:21:41.000 he didn't see it for a while. He finally did, 0:21:41.040 --> 0:21:44.840 but he picked the wrong department to activate. Yeah, like 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:47.919 the wrong like little segment that he was supposed to guess. 0:21:47.920 --> 0:21:50.040 And so some people went to the wrong place first, 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:51.600 and it took a little while to correct it, so 0:21:51.640 --> 0:21:55.480 there's some confusion. So that happened too. And then apparently 0:21:55.480 --> 0:21:58.879 the fire destroyed the building that housed the water pumps 0:21:58.880 --> 0:22:01.240 for the city, and then they tried to get water 0:22:01.280 --> 0:22:04.119 from Lake Michigan and that didn't work out so well. 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:08.960 And uh, all these things added up to the third 0:22:08.960 --> 0:22:12.160 biggest fire disaster in the nation's history. And like you said, 0:22:12.240 --> 0:22:17.000 the longhead idea of connecting the the wooden buildings with 0:22:17.119 --> 0:22:20.760 wooden streets and wooden sidewalks that I think fell out 0:22:20.800 --> 0:22:23.720 of fashion pretty quick after the Chicago fire, I bet, 0:22:24.320 --> 0:22:26.879 and people smoking on the streets, and well that probably 0:22:26.880 --> 0:22:29.320 involved keeping two tons of hay and two tons of coal. 0:22:30.160 --> 0:22:33.679 And apparently it burned what through the following evening and 0:22:33.720 --> 0:22:37.440 then thankfully it finally rained and that helped put it out. 0:22:38.920 --> 0:22:41.520 And that is a great Chicago fire. You want to 0:22:41.560 --> 0:22:44.439 hear in irony of it all, I'd love to The 0:22:44.480 --> 0:22:48.919 O'Leary house was spared, no way, it was not burned, 0:22:49.240 --> 0:22:51.640 So it just took off in one direction and from 0:22:51.640 --> 0:22:55.720 the from the barn and now um, the O'Leary's house, 0:22:55.800 --> 0:22:58.800 the house they ran to the mclaucklin's William White's house. 0:22:58.800 --> 0:23:01.680 All this stuff is gone, and uh, in its places 0:23:01.680 --> 0:23:05.000 the Chicago Fire Department's training academy and they have a 0:23:05.119 --> 0:23:08.399 Maltese crossed on the floor. Um, they have a cross 0:23:08.440 --> 0:23:11.200 on the floor. Uh, that marks the spot where the 0:23:11.240 --> 0:23:15.040 barn stood. I thought you're gonna say, like a CBS. No, No, 0:23:15.760 --> 0:23:18.000 it's very appropriately it's the fire department. Did they do 0:23:18.080 --> 0:23:20.680 that there on purpose? I believe so. Okay, that would 0:23:20.680 --> 0:23:23.359 have just been too much of a coincidence exactly. And 0:23:23.359 --> 0:23:26.960 then Mrs O'Leary really did not like the well, she 0:23:27.000 --> 0:23:29.320 didn't like the limelight. I get the impression anyway, but 0:23:29.400 --> 0:23:33.920 she really didn't like being, you know, treated like this 0:23:34.080 --> 0:23:37.960 horrible person. And she was not shy about taking a 0:23:38.000 --> 0:23:41.280 broom to people like reporters who came to her doorstep. 0:23:42.560 --> 0:23:45.960 And um, she also chased off a representative of P. T. 0:23:46.119 --> 0:23:49.119 Barnum's at least sent somebody to go offer a job 0:23:49.160 --> 0:23:53.680 traveling with this circus like the Scapegoat. I guess yeah, 0:23:53.760 --> 0:23:56.000 they would bring out a cow and her and oh no, 0:23:56.359 --> 0:23:58.600 we forgot to mention she had a pretty healthy beard. 0:23:59.600 --> 0:24:05.800 Would It's like, man, he's in the wrong line of work. Um, yeah, 0:24:05.920 --> 0:24:09.080 it would have gone right up with the fire. Her 0:24:09.080 --> 0:24:11.840 house is spare bitter beard burned off. Yeah, that's good. 0:24:12.000 --> 0:24:14.359 So yeah that's the Chicago fire. Um you said she 0:24:14.440 --> 0:24:17.800 was exonerated, right, Yeah, she was exonerated. Richard Bale's worth 0:24:19.280 --> 0:24:23.280