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The offices of Chicago newspapers were in the devastated downtown, but Evening Journal
Editor Andrew Shuman and Tribune co-owner Joseph Medill found a printer in the West
Division. According to Medill's fire narrative, he quickly upgraded the equipment, which
the Tribune used at night, the Evening Journal during the afternoon. In his
narrative of these events, Evening Journal reporter William Hutchinson remembered
working desperately with other employees to save the paper's files. They were able to get
four buggies from the Sherman House stables, but no horses, so they hauled the load
themselves, three men to a buggy, first over the State Street bridge and then west across
the North Branch of the river. Medill's partner William Bross soon found out that his
word alone was worthless in purchasing furnishings for the new space, and that he had to
ask a series of friends for cash so he could do so. In the subsequent days and weeks, these
papers solidified their operation with additional purchased or borrowed presses and type.
The Evening Journal turned out two editions on Monday, October 9th (the Evening Post
was the only other paper to publish that day), one of them in three columns (pictured
above), the other in two. The first post-fire issue of the Tribune appeared on Wednesday,
with the Republican and Evening Mail resuming the next day, the Times and the German
language press to follow later. Note the large front-page notice from the Board of Trade.
The papers of the next several days were also full of advertisements from businesses about
provisional arrangements, as well as personals regarding lost property and, in some tragic
cases, missing spouses and children. According to Colbert and Chamberlin, while the
official price remained five cents and advertising rates remained unchanged, the street price
for the first papers was anywhere from a quarter to a dollar. "To obtain them for sale upon
the street, the [news] boys (and such men as desired) had to 'fall in,' form a queue and
wait, perhaps an hour or two for a chance to buy." Those who saw a copy of the Evening
Journal read what they already knew: "The scene of ruin and devastation is beyond the
power of words to describe. Never, in the history of the world, has such a scene of
extended, terrible and complete destruction, by conflagration, been recorded; and never has
a more frightful scene of panic, distress and horror been witnessed among a helpless,
sorrowing, suffering population."
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