December 22, 1910
A fire breaks out in the basement of the Nelson Morris and Co. meatpacking plant in Chicago’s Union Stockyards. Highly flammable chemicals used for meat production and grease soaked wood made conditions ripe for fires in stockyards. Twenty-one firefighters, including the chief, were killed when one of the blazing buildings collapsed with them inside. It was the single greatest loss of professional big-city firefighters in U.S. history until September 11, 2001.