On the evening of Saturday, the 7th, a fire had broken out in {328}a portion of the West Division of the city, and consumed property to the value of a million of dollars. This was thought a terrible fire, and was heralded in all the Sabbath morning papers; thousands visited the spot on that day, and commented on and shuddered at the loss. Little did they apprehend that the same evening, Sunday, October 8, a fire would take place which would do the most deadly work, ruining business, licking up homes and property, destroying human life, and almost wiping out a whole city, whose prosperity and energy had become famous. [Illustration: 0337] Nothing escaped. Private homes, public buildings, churches, banks, theaters, the postoffice, courthouse, newspaper edifices, hotels, {329}all fell before it, and not until General Sheridan ordered the blowing up of buildings, was its progress stayed. At half-past three in the morning, while a strong southwest wind was blowing, the anxious citizens were informed that the North Side was attacked by the fire fiend, and one of the first victims to its wrath was the engine house of the waterworks, thus cutting off the supply of water for use in fighting the flames, and driving the terrified people to despair. From here it leaped northward, taking in the elevators on the river banks, with their millions of bushels of grain, setting fire to vessels lying at anchor, then to the cemetery nearest the city, and to the beautiful park known as Lincoln, in short, to every conceivable object which could furnish food for the monster of destruction. The tramp of hundreds of people fleeing from the fire, the shrieks of terror, the noise of the engines, the hoarse shouts and calls of those who searched in vain for their dear ones separated from them in the mad chase for life, the thunderous fall of stately structures, the roaring, crackling, howling flames, made a wild scene that Pandemonium was silence compared with. The fire burned the North Side until there was no trace of a building left standing save one, the residence of Mahlon D. Ogden, which stood in a large plat of ground, entirely detached. On the site of this house has since been erected a fine building of stone, devoted to a public library, and called the Newberry. The northern city limits and the lake were the only barriers to the further encroachments of the fire.