1872Chicago
The City of Chicago as it was before the great conflagration
W. Flint
Bird's-eye illustration / lithograph
1872·Chicago
The City of Chicago as it was before the great conflagration
W. Flint
Bird's-eye illustration / lithograph
What this plate shows
A lithographic bird’s-eye of Chicago drawn as it stood before 8–10 October 1871, issued the following year. River, rail, grain elevators, a dense grid to the lake. An imagined high viewpoint of a city already gone when the print was sold. Not a photograph.
- Image type
- Bird's-eye illustration / lithograph
- Source
- Library of Congress; Wikimedia scan of the 1872 lithograph.
- License
- Public domain.
Same city, two kinds
A lithograph of the city as it was before the fire, beside a photograph of the burnt district. Do not treat them as the same kind of evidence.
Chronologies
A lithograph of the city drawn as it was before 8–10 October 1871, a photograph of the burnt district, then a camera on rebuilt State Street in 1893. Three kinds of record. The fire is dated from documents.
Chicago, 1871