3-034-778 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Ruins of Chicago: the First National Bank, 1871. Engraving from photographs taken by Messrs. Luplan [sic] and Wulff '...a few days after the conflagration...of the ruins of many large and costly buildings, which were destroyed by the great fire of the 8th October...The huge disaster which has lately befallen this city - the sudden destruction of 15,000 houses, of the finest public and private edifices, and of property valued at £40,000,000 sterling, with the expulsion of 50,000 inhabitants, who have sought homes elsewhere - will not put an end to Chicago. Within the next five or six years, probably, it will have risen anew from its ashes, richer and handsomer than before. Meantime the suffering outcast and destitute families are promptly relieved by public charity...is of daily occurrence'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.