 Back in Business
Bricks and Mortar
Body and Soul
The New City
Our Trade and Commerce
Political Economy of the Fire
|
|
Burnt out of his home on Terrace Row, William Bross expended little energy on
self-pity. Chicago's future was at risk, and there was no time to lose. The fire ended
Tuesday at dawn, and by Thursday evening he was on a train to New York. On his arrival
he spoke to reporters eager for eyewitness reports, and soon after he addressed local
businessmen. His point was simple and direct: the fire opened rather than foreclosed
opportunities to invest in his city. New York, "the senior partner" in American enterprise
to "junior partner" Chicago, couldn't "sit by and see the business of the firm crushed out
when he has the means to establish it on a scale more gigantic and more profitable than ever
before." John Stephen Wright, the king of Chicago boosters, who had ceaselessly
promoted the city's prospects over the previous four decades, even more boldly declared,
"Five years will give Chicago more men, more money, more business, than she would
have had without this fire." He followed this with the colorful observation, "Chicago
is not burnt up, only well blistered for bad ailments, to strengthen her for manhood."
This talk of Chicago as a junior partner approaching manhood emphasized that the fire had
done nothing to damage the city's most important quality, its remarkable potential for
continued growth. And, whether they were speaking more from concern or from
confidence, both Bross and Wright prophesied true. Industrializing America had too much
invested in Chicago's development, and the features that made that development possible--
the city's location and resources--were still in place. After a brief downturn in the financial
markets and an even briefer moment of doubt about the future on the part of some Chicagoans, the city's rebuilding began in
earnest. Within days a few pioneer businesses sprang up in sheds and stands among the
ruins, and traffic started moving again. The rubble was swept away, a good portion of it
pushed into the lake south of the river to make new real estate. Basic services were quickly
reestablished in temporary quarters--the post office, for example, was set up in the
Methodist Church on the corner of Wabash and Harrison. Inside of six weeks, work had
begun on 212 stone and brick buildings in the South Division alone.
|
