Perspective

Chicago 1871

On a dry October Sunday in 1871 a fire broke out in southwestern Chicago. At first the fire was dismissed by most citizens... perhaps they thought it would be dealt with by the city's fire department. Unfortunately, the fire department was poorly manned and exhausted from fighting a fire the night before. The fire soon became a storm of flame that engulfed the city and reduced 4 square miles to rubble. By the time the fire was extinguished, two days later, the city lay in ruin. Potter Palmer's hotel was gone. His dry goods store reduced to ashes. Hundreds lost their lives. The city land surveys were destroyed. How would they go on?

(Chicago Tribune archive photo)

"If you were standing at the corner of Wabash and Washington Streets in Chicago in 1871, this is what you would see: piles of rubble, with the ruins of the Second Presbyterian Church in the background, just part of the unimaginable devastation from the "Great" Chicago Fire. The fire burned from Sunday October 8 to early Tuesday October 10, 1871, killing hundreds and destroying about four square miles in Chicago, Illinois."

We are delivered setbacks, disappointments, and frustrations - but if we don't rise again, we haven't learned a thing.