Chicago is one of the most famous and historic American cities. One of the most notorious events in that city’s history is the the Great Chicago Fire, that over the course of three days in 1871 killed almost 300 people as it burned about three square miles. It’s an important event, to be sure. 

In 2001 I was commissioned to create two “pitch boxes” that would contain one VHS tape, a printed booklet and a cd. These items were branded with the name Chicago Works and would be carried into a board meeting, complete with a drop of liquid smoke drizzled onto the box,  to pitch the mayor an idea of creating a tourist attraction that was both informative and entertaining. Sort of like a ride at Disneyland, this ride would take people through a created world of 1871 Chicago, complete with smells, sounds and realistic environments with animatronic characters telling the story of that horrible event, from the livestock stable where the fire was believed to have started, through to the last hours of the diminishing blaze. 

The company that was expecting to build this attraction was called Archeon. The creative director contacted me to build the boxes. As fate would have it, my client and his pitch boxes were on a flight from Los Angeles to Chicago the morning of September 11, 2001. His plane was turned around midair and the meeting never happened. 

These images include napkin sketches, refined sketches for construction and the final builds.

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