Illustration: Harper's WeeklyOn Oct. 8, 1871, The Great Peshtigo Fire swept timberlands across Northeastern Wisconsin and Upper Michigan and killed as many as 2,400 people. ``The great Midwestern city of Chicago also happened to endure a terrible fire that same fateful night, and for whatever reasons - an irresistibly charming legend about a cow and a lantern among them - the Chicago Fire became part of the national consciousness while the Peshtigo tragedy gradually slipped into obscurity,'' according to the web site The Great Peshtigo Fire.
