"Between October 8-10, 1871, much of the city of Chicago was destroyed by one of the most legendary urban fires in history. Once it began in the barn of Catherine and Patrick O'Leary, the fire quickly grew out of control. Close to one of every three Chicago residents was left homeless and more were instantly unemployed, though the death toll was miraculously low. Remarkably, no carefully researched popular history of the Great Chicago Fire has been written until now, despite it being one of the most cataclysmic disasters in US history.
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