Do you ever wonder what Chicago looked like before the Great Fire of 1871? The University of Chicago's Map Library has digitized an entire slew of wonderful maps that document Chicago's urban landscape before and after that traumatic conflagration. The growth of the city during that time was great indeed, transforming the small city from a population of 109,000 to more than one million by the...

Many American cities have been destroyed via a great conflagration, and the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 is certainly one of the best known. The Chicago History Museum has created this two-part website which explores the history of the fire and also the ways in which the fire has been remembered. In the first section ("The Great Chicago Fire") visitors can look over essays about pre-fire Chicago...