Chapter 22
Hear me out: Those Chicagoans—the same mix of scrappy immigrants and wayward Mayflower descendants and budding industrialists that existed in Cleveland at that time—got a do-over thanks to Mrs. O’Leary’s cow.
One collision of hoof and lantern, so the story goes, and all the crappy little houses and businesses that were clogging up the shores of Lake Michigan back then burned up like kindling.
Then, ka-zaam! A snazzy plan for rebuilding, some creative zoning laws, and Chicago would be called, just a few decades later, Paris on the Prairie.
Cleveland, as you’ll probably have gathered, got no such reboot, having had to make do with smaller, isolated disasters and a river with a penchant for flammability—and is thus now known as the Mistake on the Lake.
Moral of the story: fire can be a good thing, children, if it’s used correctly. Sometimes you need to burn things to the ground to get them right where you want them.