Firefighting demonstration at Soldier Field, 1971

In 1971 Chicago marked the centennial with a number of events that had less of the specifically commercial character of some of the previous major anniversaries. As had been the practice at least since the semi-centennial, the city used the anniversary to emphasize the need for fire safety. The main public commemoration was the Fire Prevention Parade down State Street on October 9, which consisted largely of an enormous procession of fire-fighting equipment. In the parade were not only two horse-drawn engines from the Chicago Fire Department, but also an 1867 engine sent to Chicago in 1871 from the northern Illinois town of Harvard, which sprayed water on an appreciative crowd of 50,000. That night the city sponsored still another bravura piece of pyrotechnics, a forty-five-minute fireworks display climaxing with Mrs. O'Leary's cow upsetting the lantern and sending the 1871 skyline up in flames. In his speech the evening before at the official city banquet, Mayor Richard J. Daley followed what was by now a long tradition when he interpreted the fire in terms of the key issues of the day. Though Chicagoans who endured this terrible trial "realized that the city in 1871 had many imperfections," he contended, they knew that "this is where they belonged." Daley continued, "This was the source of their greatness. This is the heritage they gave us. Their dream for the future was a better home, a better neighborhood, a better city." Among the guests were representatives of other countries and of American cities that had been so generous in sending aid to Chicago a century earlier.

Menu from Centennial Dinner, 1971

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