Art by Bryn Barnard

Claire Innes sat up suddenly in bed as a horse-drawn wagon raced past her house on the night of October 8, 1871. Overhearing her father talking to a man in the street, the 12-year-old girl heard the words “fire” and “big.” Her father didn’t sound worried, though, so Claire drifted back to sleep. No one in her neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois, realized how large the fire was.