October 2026 was rather dry with 0.92” of rainfall, but October 2024 was the most recent really dry one (0.21”), going down as the driest in 60 years & the 4th driest since late in the Civil War for Greater Lafayette.
However, note (below) the trace in 1874 & the 0.05” in 1872 that round out the top two driest Octobers & the 0.06” in November 1872 to the 0.75” in 1873. This applied to many other Midwestern & eastern U.S. cities in the Falls of the early 1870s. For example, 1872 is still the 4th driest November at Indianapolis.
It is the outstanding historic dryness in 1870-74 that led to historic fires, some leveling towns & part of cities, the most noteworthy one being the The Great Chicago Fire of 1871. These led to a distinct shift of construction in cities that favored steel, not wood & towering heights (which I allude to further in this post).
Southeast Virginia had an extreme drought during the Fall of 1872 with a mere 0.04” of rainfall in October, while even in 1870, major drought in that area was only relieved by a sudden unusual flooding rainfall event September 28-30, 1870.
Record low rainfall also occurred in Fall 1872 in Louisville, Kentucky with November seeing just 0.56” alone, while October and November 1874 saw (still record longest dry spell today with official records back to 1871) 29-day stretch in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania without a single drop of measurable rain.
Central Park, New York’s 1871 Fall is still the 4th driest Fall season on record with records back to 1869 while Baltimore had a 29-day rainless streak October-November 1874. Pittsburgh, PA had not a single drop of rain in 26 days in Fall 1874 & historically low rainfall overall.
From July 4 to October 8, 1871, only 3.70” fell at Chicago & just 0.74” in September, setting the stage for the catastrophic fire. Only since then has one year had an equally dry stretch: 1939.
Marquette, Michigan driest Fall months are still October 1872 & November 1871 with a mere 0.62” & 0.65” precipitation respectively. While historically dry Fall occurred in Arkansas in 1872 with many cities seeing their driest on record (still to this day). Fall of 1874 was exceptionally dry in New Jersey, solidifying establishing the lowest mark for precipitation & river, stream levels on record.
A mere 18” rain fell at Minneapolis in 1872 with the highest daily rainfall total of the entire year at 1.74” on August 8th. 6 of the 12 months saw monthly precipitation totals less than 1” & 5 of those 6 saw less than 0.50”!
However, it is important to note that in the 1874 dry year, Minneapolis had an extremely wet, stormy June with 11.67” for the month. That accounted for more than 33% of the annual rainfall for that year.
So, it is obvious the dryness was common & widespread, but not over just one year, but multiple years.
October 1874 rainfall map from U.S. Weather Bureau at that time & note the amount of real estate with less than 1” rainfall for the month:
It wasn’t just the Midwest to East that had the big drought, but there record of the hardships of the drought in parts of the Plains, like in Nebraska seen here in this Columbia University paper excerpt (Richard Seager & Celine Herweijer of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory). Drought & locust swarms were devastating in Nebraska in the early 1870s:
Robert Ball Anderson wrote in this historical perspective:
Major Fall fires occurred in these big droughts, as well, especially in the Fall. In our area & over Indiana, Summers were not excessively dry per sey for several of the years, but the late Summer to Falls were record dry, leading to an explosive fire environment in an overall year that was quite dry.
Massive fires swept the Plains, Corn Belt, Great Lakes & even in parts of the Northeast in these early 1870s.
It was those fires that not only swept fields, prairies & woods, but also entire towns & cities. Explosive fires were instrumental in a shift of constructing buildings of steel, rather than all wood. It also led to technology to build up & up & not out, while allowing more space between wooden structures. This forever changed how city buildings were constructed & how high they could & were permitted to go. The steel building & skyscraper was born.
For example, the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 & Peshtigo Fire of 1871 were associated with many other fires in October of that year. 1872 also saw major Fall fires with major fire in Boston, & the Great Mishawaka, Indiana Fire of 1872. Another fire also occurred in Chicago in 1874 (20 killed). Another significant, deadly fire, other big forest & prairie fires exploded in the ‘74 Fall. Mission Valley, Iowa (20 miles east of Council Bluffs) saw a massive fire on November 15, 1874.
A 100-mile “front” of fire swept prairie & plowed into the North Woods of Minnesota on October 3, 1871. Southeast of there, on the eastern shores of Green Bay, a mere 4.75” rain fell July-September when near 12” is normal. This preceded the Peshtigo Fire.
200 people were killed by massive fires in Michigan alone in the early October firestorm of 1871.
All of these years were deadly & were the result of the extremely dry fuels & conditions that preceded the deadly blazes.
These are the big wildfires in Tipton County & across areas of central Indiana in 1874:
