The other great fire disaster on that same day...

I suspect the same sort of thing. Chicago had a happy ending. Peshtigo simply struggled back, and many Peshtigo survivors had desperate lives.

Also, I think most of the casualties of Peshtigo were women and small children who couldn't outrun the fire, or keep from drowning in the river; so people don't want to think about it.

That is tragic to realize all of the loss of live, as well as all of that great destruction.

Says Wikipedia, "On October 8, 1871, a forest fire driven by strong winds totally consumed Peshtigo along with a dozen other villages, killing 1,200 to 2,500 people and charring approximately 1.5 million acres (6,000 km²). This fire, known as the Peshtigo Fire, is the deadliest in American history.

"The Peshtigo Fire Museum features several items that survived the fire, plus other artifacts from the area's history.

"This fire happened on the same day as the Great Chicago fire, the Holland, Michigan fire, the Port Huron Fire of 1871, and The Great Michigan Fire in Manistee, Michigan."

One way it was taught in schools in other parts of the country has it that the Great Chicago fire made the headlines, and the Peshtigo, Wisconsin fire, although more deadly and widespread, didn't make the news to any great degree because newspapers had been reporting upon the Great Chicago fire.

Twentieth-Century Fox also has devoted a little more film coverage to the Illinois disaster than the Wisconsin tragedy, or any coming from Michigan, for that matter.