For the record, it wasn’t a cow that caused the Great Chicago Fire a century and a half ago. That fact was settled a long time ago, and you probably already knew that if you’ve read the stories that abound every October retelling the tale — and none more than this year, the 150th anniversary of the Great Fire.
But while most of those stories fall short in pinpointing the exact cause, look no further. I’ll tell you how it happened.
The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 was caused not by a cow, nor even by an Irish woman’s carelessness with a lantern, but by a comet. Biela’s Comet, to be specific — or at least a part of it when it broke up and fragments rained down, not only on Chicago but over much of the Midwest.
That’s the premise of a fascinating little book, “Mrs. O’Leary’s Comet,” published in 1985 by Mel Waskin. Of course, this is just a theory promoted by Waskin and others who proposed it as early as 1883. But the facts surrounding the theory are compelling.
First the indisputable facts: Comet Biela was first discovered in 1772, and by 1826 it was identified as periodic, which means that it would return on a regular basis—about every 6.6 years.
By 1852, however, Biela was in trouble. It had split in two, and was further disintegrating. No full sightings of Biela were recorded after 1852, replaced instead by increased meteorite showers on Earth, known as the Andromedids (or Bielids), that traced the comet’s orbit.
Late 1871 would have been near to the date of Biela’s return, had it not shattered into pieces.
Those are the indisputable facts that scientists will agree to regarding Comet Biela. But Waskin picks up the story with other indisputable facts to suggest that it was the broken comet that started the fire.
The Great Fire that destroyed Chicago started around 8:30 p.m. on the night of October 8, 1871, in the barn behind the O’Leary cottage on DeKoven Street on Chicago’ south side—but other fires popped up around Chicago at around the same time. “Things burst into flames,” said one eyewitness account. “Fires broke out simultaneously.”
A fire official, assured that the O’Leary fire had been extinguished, was stunned to learn that there had been “an eruption of flames” several blocks away.
The blaze that destroyed the city was unlike any that firefighters had ever seen, not only in its size but in other ways. Firemen reported that basements were burning blue— the flame color of methane and acetylene, gases typically in frozen form in comets. Waskin suggests that chunks of frozen methane from the comet might have rained down and pooled as highly flammable gas in low areas when it warmed, rendering the blaze impossible to control.
More to the point, Chicago was only one of many places that burst inexplicably into flame that night. Peshtigo, Wisconsin, on the banks of Green Bay, burned so quickly and intensely that anywhere from 1,200 to 2,500 people died in minutes. According to Waskin, “One report from Wisconsin referred to ‘balls of fire from the sky.’”
That fire began at virtually the same instant as the Chicago Fire, 250 miles south.
East across the Lake, Holland, Michigan burned to the ground at the same time. More than 100 miles north of that, Manistee, Michigan, also burst into flames, suffering two parallel paths of destruction, 8 and 10 miles wide. There, dock workers were driven from the docks by waves of super-heated air.
Farther east that night, along the shore of Lake Huron, fire swept through Port Huron, Michigan, burning much of Michigan’s “thumb.”
The next day, October 9, fire destroyed much of downtown Urbana, Illinois. Windsor, Ontario, likewise burned on October 12.
Find all those places on a map, and it looks an awful lot like a debris path falling from the sky — the kind of footprint you might expect from a shattered comet.
Of course, the convergence of all these facts might be nothing more than coincidence. But believe his theory or not, Waskin’s little book makes for a fascinating read.
And if friends call you crazy for believing it, remind them that as crazy theories go, at least this one doesn’t require you to scarf down any cow-worm medicine to subscribe to it.
