In 1893 Chicago hosted the World’s Fair, also known as the World’s Columbian Exposition because it celebrated the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s discovery of the Americas. The fair was blighted by a fire at the cold storage facility, which killed 16 and shocked the crowd of thousands who witnessed the disaster. This tragedy has been blamed on the use of ammonia as the refrigerant, but a recent review of contemporary news reports has suggested an alternative, more likely explanation. Although the fire was over 115 years ago, lessons can still be learned about the design, construction, and operation of safer refrigerating systems.

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