Did the Great Chicago Fire really start with Mrs. O'Leary's cow?

In all of history, no cow is more infamous than Mrs. O'Leary's. The farm animals was accused of kicking over a lantern and starting the Great Chicago Fire on Oct. 8, 1871. Check out our HowStuffWorks article to learn whether this story is fact or fiction.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm editor Candice Gibson, joined today by Josh Clark. Hey,
Candice here, So I no longer feel like I'm in

(00:21):
control of my life. Candice, I'm the highly suggestible type.
I've fallen in with a few cults here there in
my lifetime. Um, I made it out. But you know,
I've never experienced anything as mind bending as the Chick
fil A cows. The mojo that they're working on me
is intense. Um. I've been waking up in the morning

(00:44):
with my bed littered with delicious Chick fil A brand
chicken sandwich wrappers. And I'm not on ambient and that's
astounding to me because to my allergy, Chick fil A
closes at ten pm. I don't know where these are
coming from. Apparently I have a key. Apparently I'm not
actually breaking and entering, just entering the cow. Yes. So also,
I sobbed quietly anytime I eat steak. It's bad. And

(01:07):
and the chick flake haws have been urging me to
do some research into their plight and kind cow kind. Yeah,
they are a very tight knit community. They dairy cows,
beef cows, pet cows. They all are are are kind
of like this, the society of cow that we're just
looking right past. They have great ideas and value. What

(01:28):
about cows veal? Um, Yeah, we don't like to talk
about that. That's that's they're really mad about veal. Believe me,
there's a there's a they have a cow hero even
uh they up in the hills, they sing folk tales
of Mrs O'Leary's cow, who exacted revenge on humankind for

(01:48):
all cow kind. Back in eighteen seventy one. You know,
Chicago was a huge and still is a huge um,
a huge slaughterhouse city. It was the end of the
cattle drive. But Mrs O'Leary's cow, this bovine you speak
of with a milk cow, he was a new danger
of being. I'm telling you. They're all very tighten it.
All cows are really mad about the like the slaughtering

(02:10):
that can oh tell me more about Apa Kappakawa. Well, okay,
i'll tell you. Let me tell you a little more
about Mrs O'Leary's cow, this hero. So it's like uh,
eighteen seventy one, Um, and Chicago at the time was
basically made of wood, which I think the cows were
waiting for. This is pretty wild, not only where most
of the houses made of wood, but the sidewalks are

(02:31):
made of wood two streets to it is my understanding,
which I'm having trouble wrapping my head around. Made it
really easy to knock on wood exactly now. The the
the basically the univers aligned. There's a cow prophecy that
that the the that on October eighteen seventy one, the
stars would align and this cow would sacrifice it's life
the life of four other cows, and I believe a

(02:53):
horse and maybe a couple of chickens by kicking over
a lantern and Mrs O'Leary's barn and Mrs O'Leary's and
had two tons of coal in it, two tons of Hey,
don't think Mrs O'Leary didn't have anything to do with
this conspiracy, right? And um, basically Chicago burned like it
never has before. You and I talked about Rome burning
whether or not Nero played the fiddle on another podcast. Well,

(03:15):
when Chicago burn it was pretty serious. To here about
three and a half square miles of the city were
just completely demolished. D Twenty people died, thousands more were homeless.
It exactly about two hundred million dollars in days. I
looked it up. That's actually three point two billion dollars
into today's money. So that was a lot from that
one kick. You know, the hey went up, the coal

(03:37):
went up, the livestock went up in Chicago went up. Um,
and the Chicago Tribune was the first two to catch on,
get hip to the cow conspiracy and report that it
was Mrs O'Leary's cow who started this horrible fire. Um,
is that fact or fiction? I really really hate to
burst your bubble. I know that you've been having a

(03:58):
great time weaving this fairy tale for all of our listeners,
and I hope you've all been enjoying it. I know
I have, and I haven't been rolling my eyes at all.
But it is fiction and the story of the Great
Chicago Fire is legendary really because there's no definitive answer
to whom you started the fire and the cow. You know, again,

(04:19):
maybe this will plaque at you, Uh, the cow is
a likely contender, or at least it lives on in legend,
But in this case, there's been at least one confession,
one story that was recanted, one busted testimony, and a
handful morph theories about the fire. And when there was
an official inquiry into the cause of the fire, none

(04:40):
could be determined. Now, who's being naive, Candice? I'm sorry
taking a big by a burger. Um Uh to move
on with the story. Let me tell you about some
of the other crazy theories that are out there. Boys
playing with matches start at the fire. A comet hit
the earth and smoldering bits of are it's actually started

(05:01):
the fires? Explanation? Uh, Communist Parisians started the fire. It
was the wrath of God and a tramp smoking a pipe.
And by tramp we mean like a hobo. Not to
confuse our younger audiences out there. And you know, it's
funny because this whole you know, mishmash about Ms O

(05:22):
Leary and her cow. The reporter who gave that stories
that he was essentially looking for a different angle, and
forty years later he said, you know what, y'all, I
made up that story. It wasn't really true. But the
reason it caused such a splash and the reason that
the cows have spoken to Josh about it. It was
that Mrs o Leary was ripe for the vengeance she

(05:42):
had been unwelfare, she her husband and her five children.
But then word got out that she'd been selling dairy
products on the side from from a cow, from said cow,
and when the city cut her off, she was really
upset about it, and apparently she vowed to exact her revenge.
And some people said that's exactly what this fire was,

(06:04):
that she started at herself. Other theory being that her
cow accidentally kicked every care sing lantern. Well, then the
story sort of took a turn for the worst when
she got on the stand and said, not only did
she not start the fire, she was in bed and
her neighbors were the ones having a wild party and
they snuck into the barn to get milk and they

(06:25):
started the fire. You're not seeing a pattern here. Then
things took a turn for the even more complicated when uh,
peg leg Sullivan, this is Daniel peg leg Sullivan, perhaps
not the most flattering nickname. Um. Apparently he got up
and gave his testimony and he said that he saw
the fire and he reported it and he ran for

(06:46):
help and this, you know, it was sort of accepted
for what it was worth, until when a lawyer named
Richard Bales set out to figure out if peg Leg
was telling the truth. And one of the points he
made was that you've got a peg leg, you can't
really run that fast, and the distance that peg Leg
claimed to have run was about the length of a

(07:08):
football field. Furthermore, Baal said that his line of vision
from where he was reportedly standing when he spawned at
the fire, there would have been a house in his
way and he wouldn't have been able to see the
fire rising from the O'Leary's barn. So years after the
fire raged and burned down the city, Mrs O'Leary was

(07:29):
finally exonerated. So we're not sure if peg Leg was
the one who was in the barn and kicked over
the lantern or or the pipe that he was smoking
set the fire. No one really knows, but it was
it was just, you know, it was a rough night
for everyone, the cow that lost its life, the o'learys
who lived in an infamy and notoriety for years, and

(07:50):
for Chicago really and if the universe was aligning, whether
it was you know, cow forces or not, Chicago was
right for the burning. Like we said, everything was made
of wood. The night of the fire, there was a
strong wind blowing. And to make matters even worse, the
Chicago firemen, of whom there were only two hundred, were
exhausted and their resources depleted because the previous night they've

(08:13):
been finding a fire as well well. Plus also the
building that housed all their water pumps burned to the
ground as well. Yeah, and some of them even got
the wrong address to the alliers that they didn't show
up in time. And they were trying to pump water
reserves from like Michigan to help with the effort, and
that wasn't working in their favorite either. You know, the
puny humans didn't even put the fire out. It was

(08:34):
the rain that came the next evening that eventually did.
And I suppose a great cow and the sky commissioned
that weather, you know, canus. I appreciate you clearing this
up for me, but I am afraid I'm going to
have to report your lack of faith in my cow overlords,
so I would strongly advise you not to send any
personal information over the internet from now on. Well, I
guess at least I'll be safe to go on our

(08:54):
website and read the article did the Great Chicago Fire
really start with? Mrs O'Leary's unhelped staff works dot com
for moralness and thousands of other topics. Because at how
stuff works dot com, let us know what you think.
Send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot
com m