Plan of Burnt District [by Fire of Nov. 9th and 10th 1872] Showing Street Improvements Adopted by Board of Street Commissioners and City Council 1873

No place of publication [Boston]: [City of Boston], n.d. [presumably 1873]. An exceptionally large and detailed map, approximately 44 x 57”; scaled at 50 feet to the inch; with pink and green highlights. The destruction is outlined with each parcel’s size and ownership noted; many of the streets, primarily small ones, no longer exist, and others were widened. Folded numerous times; some chips, tears and stains, which are, for the most part, marginal; a good example that would benefit from relatively minor conservation, as well as mounting on canvas. Cities in an earlier day often went up in flames, and this conflagration destroyed most of what is now downtown Boston and the financial district. The fire chief at the time was modernizing his department, and objected to the demolishing of buildings in the path of the fire, correctly noting that rather than blocking the fire, this practice fueled it. The map shows where the fire was stopped at Milk Street, at the Old South Meeting-House. This historic structure, from which the disguised mob left to dump tea into the harbor, was saved by citizens who threw wet blankets over the roof to prevent it from catching fire.