The exhibit opens Friday at the Chicago History Museum.<\/b>
\nA bird\u2019s-eye view of a city ablaze, ropy flames crackling against the night sky from every window and doorway. That\u2019s the image many have of the Great Chicago Fire \u2014 that, and a clumsy cow knocking over a lantern in Mrs. O\u2019Leary\u2019s shed. The Chicago History Museum\u2019s \u201cCity on Fire: Chicago 1871,\u201d opening Friday, offers the wide-angle images of a blaze that destroyed some 200,000 buildings, but it also encourages a closer, more personal look on the 150th anniversary. \u201cDear Chum…,\u201d begins a letter written in fountain pen by 12-year-old Justin Butterfield, describing, apparently to a friend, his family\u2019s frantic escape from the blaze. Butterfield describes evacuating and loading up what they can \u2014 two trunks \u2014 into a wheelbarrow. \u201cWe got [along] very well until the Peshtigo Lumber yard caught on fire. Then it was all we could do to breathe,\u201d he wrote. \u201cMother caught on fire once, but we put it out.\u201d The exhibit, taking up some 4,000 square feet, includes cases displaying stacks of coins fused together from the intense heat, three blackened cookies and a dozen or so keys that no longer serve a purpose, \u201cImagine losing your home or your business; It\u2019s gone but you still have the key. What would you do?\u201d said Julius L. Jones, the exhibit\u2019s curator. The exhibit also seeks to kill off for good some of the myths surrounding the fire, including that Mrs. O\u2019Leary\u2019s cow started it and that the city wasn\u2019t prepared for it. \u201cChicago was prepared for the fire. All the preparations failed. That\u2019s a somewhat different thing than being unprepared,\u201d Jones said. The city had one of the most \u201celaborate alarm systems, the latest technology in the world,\u201d Jones said. One of the elegant 1871 alarms is part of the display. \u201cThey had a professional fire department, a steam engine pumper… but the fatigue and destruction of equipment that comes from fighting multiple fires every day in Chicago really led to the conditions that caused the fire to have the time to grow and have a life of its own,\u201d Jones said. The museum is planning for the exhibit to remain open at least through August 2025. The fire exhibit is included in the price of general admission: $19 for adults, $17 for seniors and students and free for chidren who are Illinois residents and under 18.<\/p>\n