# REPORT — Board of Police and Fire Commissioners' inquiry into the origin of the Chicago fire (testimony 23 Nov.–4 Dec. 1871)

## 1. Bottom line

* **The full Bales/CHS transcription (chsmedia.org) could NOT be obtained.** `chsmedia.org` resolves (64.107.162.134) but every request, http or https, dies with "upstream connect error or disconnect/reset before headers … connection timeout" (HTTP 503 via the proxy, or a bare reset). No alternate host serves the path (details in §4). **No mirror of the transcription exists anywhere I could reach** (Google, archive.org metadata and full-text, Open Library, Wikisource, Wikimedia Commons, Google Books, chicagology, greatchicagofire.org, university course sites, the CHM website itself). The Wayback Machine and archive.ph are blocked by policy.
* **A polite retry loop** tried `http://` and `https://chsmedia.org/media/fa/fa/M-C/ChgoFire-transcript.htm` every 3 minutes; at the last check it had made 10 attempts, all failed.
* **What was obtained instead (all fetched text, nothing from memory):**
  1. **One verbatim question-and-answer extract**: Catherine O'Leary's testimony of 24 Nov. 1871 as transcribed by the Chicago History Museum for greatchicagofire.org (about 1,400 words, ~45 Q/A pairs) — `text/witnesses/catherine_oleary_1871-11-24_VERBATIM_greatchicagofire.org.txt`. Plus a scan of the first handwritten page of that testimony (CHM ichi-32210, 1280×2029; the image is not included in this folder).
  2. **The Chicago Tribune's day-by-day reports of the testimony** (Library of Congress / Chronicling America has the Tribune for 1864–72). The Board's own report says "a large part of this testimony was published in the daily papers as it was taken from day to day". Reports for the sessions of 23, 24, 25, 27, 28 Nov. and 1, 2 Dec. 1871, plus the Board's full report (12 Dec.) and the 20 Oct. 1871 affidavits letter, were downloaded as OCR text and cut into per-day and per-witness files (35 witness segments) — `text/tribune/`, `text/witnesses/*_TRIBUNE_REPORT.txt`. These are reported-speech newspaper condensations with some direct quotation, **not** the stenographic record.
  3. **Sheahan & Upton (1871), Appendix "The Origin of the Fire", pp. 419–439** — condensed testimony of 10 witnesses taken "thus far (Nov. 27)" (Brown, Schaffer, Mrs. O'Leary, Catharine Sullivan, Dennis Rogan [Regan], Catharine McLaughlin, Patrick O'Leary, Daniel Sullivan, Michael W. Conway, Christopher Schimmels) (text is essentially the Tribune's reports) — `text/books/sheahan_upton_…txt` and per-witness `text/witnesses/*_SUMMARY_sheahan_upton.txt`.
  4. **Andreas, History of Chicago vol. 2 (1885), pp. 706–715** — origin section, the McDermott affidavits, condensed testimony (O'Leary, McLaughlin, Patrick O'Leary, Regan, Anderson, Musham), the Board's full report and Andreas's critique — `text/books/andreas_…txt`.
  5. The Board's report as printed by Luzerne (1872) and by greatchicagofire.org (from Andreas); the Board's *Annual Report … year ending March 31, 1872* passage on the origin; Colbert & Chamberlin and Goodspeed on the first reports — `text/books/`.
  6. **Richard Bales (2002)**: 102 verbatim OCR fragments harvested through Open Library's search-inside API (the IA copy is a restricted lending item whose own search-inside returns 403), including Bales's citations to the manuscript ("Inquiry, vol. [1], pp. 59, 61" etc.), which give the **handwritten volume and page numbers of each witness** — `text/bales/bales_2002_openlibrary_search_inside_snippets.md`; table in `text/INDEX.md`.
  7. Smithsonian (2012) quotations, the chicagology "Origin of the Fire" page (Evening Post 12 Dec. 1871 report preamble, Tribune 20 Oct. 1871 affidavits), Wikipedia wikitext with its citations, Preservation Chicago's excerpt of the Chicago Magazine article — `text/other/`, `text/chicagology/`.

## 2. What exactly is where

```
transcript/
  REPORT.md                      this file
  text/INDEX.md                  witness-by-witness index (name, date, MS volume/pages, verbatim/extract/summary, source URL, fetch time, file)
  text/witnesses/                one file per witness per source (35 Tribune segments, 11 Sheahan&Upton segments = 10 witnesses + the authors' note, 1 verbatim O'Leary)
  text/tribune/                  full OCR of every Tribune page 23 Nov–14 Dec 1871 (tribune_DATE_pN.txt) + cut articles (inquiry_*.txt) + witness_index.json
  text/books/                    extracts from the six printed sources, with printed page numbers
  text/bales/                    Open Library search-inside fragments from Bales 2002 (+ MS page citations)
  text/gcf/, text/chicagology/, text/other/, text/pdf/   converted web pages and PDFs
```

Working copies of the raw downloads (`raw/`) and the fetch log (`sources/SOURCES.md`) are not included in this folder.

## 3. Sources obtained — exact URLs

| Source | URL | Local |
|---|---|---|
| "Kate the barn is afire" (verbatim O'Leary Q&A) | https://greatchicagofire.org/oleary-legend-library/%E2%80%9Ckate-barn-afire%E2%80%9D/ | raw/gcf/…kate-barn-afire…html → text/witnesses/catherine_oleary_1871-11-24_VERBATIM_greatchicagofire.org.txt |
| "The Official Report" (Board report, from Andreas) | https://greatchicagofire.org/oleary-legend-library/official-report/ | text/gcf/…official-report_.txt |
| "Mrs. Leary's Cow" (1872 Insurance Monitor poem) | https://greatchicagofire.org/oleary-legend-library/%e2%80%9cmrs-leary%e2%80%99s-cow%e2%80%9d/ | text/gcf/…mrs-leary…cow…txt |
| First MS page of O'Leary testimony, CHM ichi-32210 | https://greatchicagofire.org/item/ichi-32210/ ; image https://greatchicagofire.org/sites/greatchicagofire.org/files/i32210_poster.jpg | raw/gcf_images/full_i32210_poster.jpg |
| Timeline items 1871-11-24 "The Fire Inquiry", 1871-12-11 "The Verdict: No Verdict" (and 10-20…12-30) | https://greatchicagofire.org/timeline/item/1871-11-24/ etc. | text/gcf/…timeline_item_*.txt |
| O'Leary Legend essay, eyewitness anthology | https://greatchicagofire.org/oleary-legend/ ; https://greatchicagofire.org/eyewitnesses/anthology-of-fire-narratives/ | text/gcf/ |
| Chicago Tribune 1871 (LoC, lccn sn82014064): issues 23 Nov–14 Dec (114 pages) + 20 Oct (4 pages) | https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn82014064/1871-11-25/ed-1/?sp=6 (pattern); OCR via https://tile.loc.gov/text-services/word-coordinates-service?segment=/service/ndnp/dlc/batch_dlc_clark_ver03/data/sn82014064/no_reel/1871112501/0006.xml&format=alto_xml&full_text=1 | raw/loc/tribune/*.json → text/tribune/ |
| chicagology "Origin of the Fire" (fire052), fire index, Leary's cottage (fire030), Sheahan (fire045), Colbert (fire038), Tribune 11 Oct (fire050) | https://chicagology.com/chicago-fire/fire052/ etc. | text/chicagology/ |
| Sheahan & Upton 1871 (Trent Univ. copy; LoC copy greatconflagrat00shea gave HTTP 500) | https://archive.org/download/greatconflagrati0000shea/greatconflagrati0000shea_djvu.txt | raw/books/, text/books/sheahan_upton_… (pp. 419–439) |
| Colbert & Chamberlin 1871 | https://archive.org/download/chicagogreatconf00colb/chicagogreatconf00colb_djvu.txt | text/books/colbert_… (pp. 205–206 "the lamp was upset"; p. 436 squibs) |
| Goodspeed 1871 | https://archive.org/download/historyofgreatfi00good/historyofgreatfi00good_djvu.txt | text/books/goodspeed_… (pp. 155–157, Times account) |
| Luzerne 1872 | https://archive.org/download/lostcitydramaoff00luze/lostcitydramaoff00luze_djvu.txt | text/books/luzerne_… (pp. 183–184) |
| Andreas vol. 2, 1885 | https://archive.org/download/historyofchicago02andr/historyofchicago02andr_djvu.txt | text/books/andreas_… (pp. 706–715) |
| Board of Police report, year ending 31 Mar. 1872 | https://archive.org/details/report-of-the-board-of-police-in-the-fire-department-to-the-common-council-of-th (file "Report of the Board of Police … 1872_djvu.txt") | raw/books/boardpolice1872_djvu.txt; text/books/board_of_police_report_1872_pp12-13… |
| Bales 2002, IA restricted item | https://archive.org/metadata/greatchicagofire0000bale ; search via https://openlibrary.org/search/inside.json?q=… | raw/openlibrary/, text/bales/ |
| Smithsonian, Kahler 2012 | https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-or-who-caused-the-great-chicago-fire-61481977/ (Cloudflare for curl; quotes via a page-fetch tool) | text/other/smithsonian_2012_kahler_quotes.md |
| Wikipedia wikitext: Catherine O'Leary; Great Chicago Fire (Daniel "Pegleg" Sullivan redirects to its "Precise start" section) | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Catherine_O%27Leary&action=raw ; …title=Great_Chicago_Fire&action=raw | raw/other/, text/other/ |
| Preservation Chicago excerpt of Loerzel, Chicago Magazine Oct. 2021 | https://www.preservationchicago.org/chicago-magazine-the-great-chicago-fire-as-told-by-those-who-lived-through-it/ | text/other/preservationchicago_chicagomag.txt |
| City of Chicago landmark report "Site of the Origin of the Chicago Fire of 1871"; ISBA and IADC mock-trial packets | https://www.chicago.gov/content/dam/city/depts/zlup/Historic_Preservation/Publications/Site_of_Chicago_Fire.pdf ; https://www.isba.org/sites/default/files/teachers/mocktrial/2001%20Chicago%20Fire.pdf ; https://www.iadclaw.org/assets/1/6/15-2_-_Fact_Pattern_-_City_of_Chi_v._Catherine_OLeary_Fact_v2.pdf | text/pdf/ (secondary; no verbatim testimony) |
| courses.shroutdocs.org tag page; agilewriter.com | https://courses.shroutdocs.org/his254-spring2014/tag/daniel-peg-leg-sullivan/ ; https://agilewriter.com/History/PegLegSullivan.htm | text/other/ (student essay / popular page; paraphrase only) |

## 4. What could not be obtained, and why (exact URLs tried)

* `http://chsmedia.org/media/fa/fa/M-C/ChgoFire-transcript.htm` → 503 "upstream connect error … connection timeout" (every try); `https://chsmedia.org/…` → connection reset (000); `http://www.chsmedia.org/…` → reset. `getent hosts chsmedia.org` = 64.107.162.134 (www.chsmedia.org does not resolve). Alternates: `https://media.chicagohistory.org/media/fa/fa/M-C/ChgoFire-transcript.htm` → Cloudflare 522 (origin down); `https://www.chicagohistory.org/media/fa/fa/M-C/ChgoFire-transcript.htm` → 404; `https://www.chicagohs.org/…` and `https://chicagohs.org/…` → 500 "Database Error". The CHM site search (`https://www.chicagohistory.org/?s=fire+transcript+1871`) shows only activity-kit PDFs. Google finds the transcript only at the chsmedia URL (also cited by the Chicago Collections finding aid, `https://explore.chicagocollections.org/marcxml/chicagohistory/30/fj2bn04/`, which is Cloudflare-gated and was not attempted with a browser). Distinctive-phrase searches ("I knew a horse could not be got out of a fire unless he be blinded", "I got just the way I could not tell anything about the fire", "Kate the barn is afire") find no other copy of the transcription.
* Internet Archive full-text search: the site-wide FTS endpoint rejects `sin=TXT` for anonymous clients (HTTP 400 "unsupported request parameter"); the item-level `fulltext/inside.php` for greatchicagofire0000bale returns 403 "Item not available" (restricted lending item); its `_djvu.txt`, `_hocr_searchtext.txt.gz`, `_page_numbers.json` give 401. **Substitute:** Open Library's `search/inside.json` (fragments only, no page numbers).
* Bales, "Did the Cow Do It?", Illinois Historical Journal 90:1 (1997): old host dig.lib.niu.edu has no DNS; `https://digital.lib.niu.edu/islandora/search/…` redirects to a Cloudflare challenge (also via a page-fetch tool); `https://www.lib.niu.edu/…` unreachable; JSTOR search returns a JS-challenge shell; Google Books lists the volume (id HTIUAAAAYAAJ) with no view. Not obtained.
* Google Books: `googleapis.com/books/v1` → 429; after two page requests `books.google.com` served "We're sorry… automated queries" (403). The old Atom feed (`https://www.google.com/books/feeds/volumes?q=…`) works and shows Bales 2002/2015 (id rppt7mgfiKMC, partial view) and *Chicago History* 1 (Fall 1971) "Kate! The Barn is Afire!" (no view) contain the phrase.
* Chicago Magazine, Loerzel, "The Great Chicago Fire, As Told By Those Who Lived Through It" (`https://www.chicagomag.com/chicago-magazine/october-2021/inside-the-great-chicago-fire/`) → 404 ("Page not found – Chicago Tribune"), also via a page-fetch tool; only the Preservation Chicago excerpt was recovered.
* HathiTrust (babel/catalog.hathitrust.org) and explore.chicagocollections.org: Cloudflare JS challenge; no headless-browser attempt was made (Chromium cannot pass the egress proxy here).
* Chronicling America gaps: the Tribune of **1 Dec. 1871 is not in LoC (404)**, **30 Nov. has only 2 pages** and **5 Dec. only 4 pages**, so the sessions of Wed. 29 Nov., Thu. 30 Nov. and Mon. 4 Dec. 1871 have no Tribune report here; `chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/…/ocr.txt` redirects to a Cloudflare-gated loc.gov URL, so OCR was taken from the tile.loc.gov word-coordinates service instead. The LoC search API also throttled (429) once.
* Wikimedia Commons / Wikisource: API rate-limited (429) intermittently; successful queries ("Chicago fire 1871 testimony", "O'Leary Chicago fire 1871") return only pictures, maps and IA book PDFs — **no page scans of the inquiry volumes**. Wikisource has no relevant text.
* thechicagofire.com (Bales's old site cited by the shroutdocs page) is now an unrelated finance blog. thechicagofiles.com, umich.edu student site, chicagoandcookcountycemeteries.com → 403.
* Andreas's condensed testimony and Sheahan & Upton's appendix are the same newspaper condensation; neither is verbatim.

## 5. Notes for the investigation

* The Tribune of 24 Nov. 1871 states that on the first day (23 Nov.) "It was the intention to have a short-hand writer to take the evidence in full, but as one could not be procured, Mr. Brown wrote the testimony in long-hand. There were but two witnesses examined" (Brown and Schaffer); from 25 Nov. "the testimony was taken in full by a short-hand writer" (`text/witnesses/william_j_brown_1871-11-24_TRIBUNE_REPORT.txt`, `text/tribune/inquiry_day3_…`).
* The Evening Post of 12 Dec. 1871 (via chicagology) quotes the Board: "We have heard the sworn testimony of fifty-one witnesses and had the same taken down by a stenographer and subsequently transcribed. As written out it fills about 900 pages of foolscap paper."
* Bales's citations recovered from the snippets place the O'Leary-barn witnesses in **vol. [1]**: W. J. Brown p. 1; W. Musham p. 29; Catherine O'Leary pp. 59–78; Catherine Sullivan p. 117; Dennis Regan pp. 121–22; C. Schimmals pp. 131–33; G. Rau p. 179; Catharine McLaughlin pp. 223–43; Patrick O'Leary pp. 247–51; Daniel Sullivan pp. 259–72; **vol. [2]**: M. W. Conway pp. 2–39; J. Dorsey pp. 64–65; L. Meyers pp. 93–110; D. Kenyon p. 126; M. C. Hickey pp. 150–81; J. Tolland pp. 184–86; **vol. [3]**: P. T. Burtis pp. 50–57; T. B. Burtis pp. 77–92; C. Anderson p. 109; J. H. Hildreth pp. 128–55; W. Fraser pp. 238–42; C. H. French p. 304; **vol. [4]**: T. Ockerby pp. 1–34; R. A. Williams pp. 241–85 (see `text/INDEX.md`).
* The full verbatim Q&A for Catherine O'Leary (greatchicagofire.org) can be compared line-by-line with the Tribune/Sheahan condensation to gauge how much the newspaper reports compress — they follow the testimony closely but drop most of the Q&A.