Mrs O'Leary's Barn

A reporter later boasted that he had invented the most famous cow in America.

Collection: Chicago · USA · Open in OpenStreetMap

O'Leary's cottage on DeKoven Street, 1871 · A.H. Abbott, Photographer, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

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How the story begins

She swore she was in bed. Catherine O'Leary was about forty-four, an Irish immigrant with at least five cows in a barn behind a cottage on this block. On the night of 8 October 1871 a fire started in that barn. It killed about three hundred people and left a hundred thousand homeless. The official inquiry could not settle what caused it, and said it had found no proof against her.

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