It was a bright and dry day on Monday October 9, 1871 – a little more than two years since the dedication of the imposing new church – when the great bells in St. Michael’s tower began to toll a warning, slowly, sonorously as the firestorm moved northward.

The wooden roof of the pumping station had gone up in a blaze, leaving the entire city without water, and the south-side gas works exploded with a roar. Gusts of wind blew flaming debris across the Chicago River in an ocean of flames, and its whirlwinds began to devour the North Side. Clapboard houses on all sides of the church wrinkled and withered.

Called by the tolling of St. Michael’s church bells, German parishioners filled the wood-cobbled streets and planked sidewalks, hoping the massive walls of St. Michaels would resist the fire. Then they watched as the church took fire, the upper section of the bell tower burned and began to crumble. The huge bells hurtled from their tower with a dull thud and melted into a toneless mass of bronze.

When they returned on Tuesday morning to survey the debris, gone were the monastery, convent, and school. Miraculously the shell of St. Michael’s stood – the solid brick and stone walls and soaring Corinthian columns stood then as they would stand when the church was restored.

With typical German industry, the parishioners set about rebuilding their homes and church, propping up the now freestanding columns, clearing the rubble away, and shoveling piles of ashes and debris into the catacomb of tunnels beneath the old church (ashes that remain to this day in the basement of the church).

Little more than two years after the fire, marching bands from the parishes of St. Joseph, St. Boniface, St. Anthony and others awakened the slumbering city to celebrate the resurrection of their church. Then in 1876, the new bells arrived -- St. Michael, St. Mary, St. Joseph, St. Alphonsus, and St. Theresa -- the bells Oldtowners still hear today as they sound on the quarter, half, and hour.

Paraphrased from Fr. Ed Vella C.Ss.R.'s "Historic Saint Michael’s of Old Town and Fire of 1871," Aug 19 2022.

Watercolor by Jacqueline Pilato.

Thank you for your generosity, and for celebrating this milestone with us! Love, Jackie & Danny