The Great Chicago Fire remains an unsolved whodunit, but the City Council may weigh in soon on who didn't and finally clear Mrs. O'Leary and her infamous cow.
"Perhaps it is possible to redeem history just a bit and at the same time, restore the reputation and character of that tough, humorous Chicago legend, Kate O'Leary," Alderman Edward Burke said.Burke held a hearing Monday on whether it's time for the city to exonerate Mrs. O'Leary for the fire that began Oct. 8, 1871. It burned for three days, killing about 300 people and leaving close to 100,000 homeless. With anti-Irish sentiment high at the time, Mrs. O'Leary was an easy scapegoat.
Historians, particularly Richard Bales, recently have begun disputing accounts of Mrs. O'Leary's neighbor, Daniel "Peg Leg" Sullivan, who said he saw the cow kick over a lantern in her dairy barn. Bales said a building would have blocked Sullivan's view. Bales even suggests that Sullivan may have started the fire at the barn.