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At the time of the fire, sixty-six-year-old Roswell Mason was nearing the end of his single
term (the city's mayors then served for two years). Mason was one of the very capable
engineers who accomplished the nineteenth-century transportation revolution in America.
As a teenager in his native New York, he received his first on-the-job training on the Erie
Canal. By the late 1830s he had switched to the infant railroad industry, eventually
becoming chief engineer and superintendent of the New York and New Haven Railroad.
He moved to Illinois in 1851 to supervise the construction of the Illinois Central Railroad,
his most impressive achievement. While he had been a member of the Board of Public
Works, the mayoralty was his first elected office. As a reform candidate chosen to counter
the partisan and reputedly corrupt politicians of the Common Council, Mason not
surprisingly called on General Sheridan to keep the peace and the businessmen on the
board of the Relief and Aid Society to administer the enormous outpouring of
contributions sent to help Chicagoans recover.
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Emergency Measures 