Although the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 devastated the residential and inner business districts of the city, the fundamental foundations of Chicago's economic dominance, which was as a gateway city to transport agricultural and manufactured goods between East and West, were unchallenged. The grain elevators, railroads, lumber yards, and stockyards were well outside the burned district. If the economic foundations of Chicago's economy had literally gone up in flames, could it have lost its status as the premier city of the West?