Chicago Union Stock Yards fire (1934)

[1] The Union Stock Yards of Chicago, Illinois in the United States were, at the time, the commercial butchering and meatpacking center of the Midwest.

[1] According to the Chicago Tribune, "Sirens wailed across the city, as five-sixths of Chicago's pumpers and ladder trucks raced to the stockyards.

Their vacated firehouses were staffed with units sent from Blue Island, Chicago Heights, Oak Lawn, Harvey and other suburbs.

With 200 Chicago police officers doing crowd control at the yards, volunteers manned their beats.

"[1] The fire was probably started by a still-lit cigarette discarded off the 43rd Street Viaduct into the straw-lined wooden cattle pens below.

Photograph of the destruction, taken by an employee of the Yards who later became the mother of a Wikipedia contributor