Mrs O'Leary's Comet

by Waskin

Uses eyewitness accounts and astronomical records to argue that the great Chicago fire was caused by the earth's collision with a dying comet and compares the event with the unexplained 1908 explosion in Siberia

168 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

Reviews

[Mary Ritch · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all-time favorite books. Very plausible theory. Wonderful eyewitness accounts of the burning of Chicago and surrounding areas in 1871.

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

On 8 October 1871, annual prairie fires in the Upper Midwest, "which had been burning normally, that is to say under control and offering no serious danger to life . . . suddenly, at exactly the same time on the same night, hundreds of miles apart, burst out with an unprecedented fury and bec[a]me impossible to control." These fires left 1200 people dead in rural Wisconsin, sped across parts of Michigan and, most famously, burned the city of Chicago to the ground.

The theory proposed by this book--that it was a comet colliding with earth that started these fires--seems to recur every few decades and apparently is considered unlikely by those who understand these things, but very little of the book concerns itself with defending the theory. Instead, the majority of the book is devoted to recounting the events of the night of these fires, and for that reason it is well worth reading. As someone who has lived much of her life in Chicago, on and off, it was fascinating to follow the fire as it moved across the city street by street.