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William Cronon explains in his book how Chicago expanded and developed in his book Nature’s Metropolis. With the development of canals and then railroads to transport goods and the elevation of the city, the chicagoans were expanding fast. Even with the horrid weather they had and floods they were able to make it work and become successful. Just like Oosegueda comments in “Chicago vs. Nature,” when there were disadvantage they they made it fit their needs. And that was very true true until the Chicago fire in 1871. A fire that starts near the O’Leary farm and spreads throughout all of Chicago. It consumed everything from the buildings, sidewalks and even bridges that were all made out of wood(Bessie Bradwell Helmer). All the people were scattered all over town trying to run from the flames that eventually gave out on Tuesday morning. But as a historian one has to think why was this event important. And I believe it is important because we learn how no matter how much you try to fight nature, it can not go away which leads us to the topic of natural and unnatural as we spoke in class. Since Chicago was very dry and everything was made out of wood, any fire would spread rapidly. This incident is seen as unnatural because people had something do with it and it is not something that could have happened a lone. Although some might argue that is was inevitable because how bad the climate was. But again, everything built was human made which makes it unnatural on how the fire spread.