Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 August 1893 — SOUTH CHICAGO FIRE. [ARTICLE]

SOUTH CHICAGO FIRE.

The Great Industrial Suburb Almost Destroyed. Seven Thousand People Homeless—Three Hundred Buildings Ga Up in Smoke. A fire, which in the extent of territory it covered, almost rivals Chicago’s historic conflagration began in that part of the city known as South Chicago about 5 o’clock, Thursday afternoon. From a three-story brick building at the corner of Ninety-First street and Superior avenue flames which rapidly grew in volume, ate their way over block after block of small frame residences until they reached the lake. Within two hours the fire had consumed at least thirty buildings and five blocks of the greatest industrial suburb of Chicago. The 50,000 residents of the town were pcrcipitated into a panic second only in this city to that which characterized the conflagration sf 1871. The burned district is north of the river which opens out into the Calumet harbor, protected on the north and south by government piers. Between the river and the district in which the flames originated are the great lumber yards and lumber docks aloug the Calumet river and harbor. These are just south of the Chicago & Western Indiana and the Rock Island & Pacific railroad, running north and south between Erie and Ontario-aves. marked atits beginning the western boundary of the fire. Two squares from the origin of the fire to the northare the immense shops of the Baltimore <t Ohio railroad company. Hundreds of people deprived of home comforts, with scarcely a warning, gathered along Ninety-first street and adjacent thoroughfares. But.they were not to be homeless, for the citizens of South Chicago rallied to their assistance. It was not necessary to even organize relief committees and no definite steps toward the housing of the unfortunate people were taken. The word was passed down the line that the houses of those who were not losers by the fire, without exception, were open to any and all who had been driven out upon the streets. South Chicago is almost entirely a manufacturing surburb. and is situated at the month of the Calumet river, about thirteen miles from the city hall. The principal establishment is the Illinois steel company, which employs at the present time about six thousand men. The river front and lake shore are occupied for long distances by immense lumber and coal yards and shipping docks. It has a population in round figures of about fifty thousand.