Daisy the cow almost certainly did not start the Great Chicago Fire. But that has not stopped as many as 50 people per week from calling a Chicago real estate agent they’re curious about a mansion he is selling that he says was built for Catherine O’Leary, the troublemaking cow’s owner. The language in the listing for the 6,270-square-foot, four-story Englewood mansion at 726 W. Garfield Boulevard does not exactly lend itself to myth.
Much like the legend that Catherine O’Leary’s cow started the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, historians doubt the story that the home was built for her or that she ever lived there.