Use the arrow keys to move between letters. Press Enter or Space on the first letter of a word, then again on the last letter. Press Escape to cancel.
A few of the words
- BLUEPRINT
- After 1871, Chicago's reconstruction produced some of the earliest formal architectural blueprints used to satisfy new municipal inspection requirements, a practice that spread to cities across the country.Find this word in the grid to read its note.
- FIREPROOF
- The post-fire Chicago building ordinance of 1872 required the use of fireproof materials, brick, stone, and terra cotta, in the central business district, one of the first such mandates in American history.Find this word in the grid to read its note.
- STEEL
- The Home Insurance Building, completed in Chicago in 1885, used a steel frame to carry its floors' weight, a structural breakthrough widely credited as the birth of the modern skyscraper.Find this word in the grid to read its note.
- SKYLINE
- Chicago's rebuilt skyline became so celebrated that the city earned the nickname 'The City of the Big Shoulders,' a phrase popularized by poet Carl Sandburg in 1914.Find this word in the grid to read its note.
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Chicago Fire word search
The Chicago Fire and the Birth of Modern Building Codes: a free online word search
Chicago Fire word search, set in the world of fireproofing, building codes, and the 1871 night that remade how cities think about stone over wood.
About The Chicago Fire and the Birth of Modern Building Codes
On October 8, 1871, fire swept through Chicago, burning for two days and leveling roughly a third of the city. In the years that followed, architects and engineers descended on the rubble with a radical idea: build higher, build smarter, and build to last, using fireproof brick, iron frames, and the structural steel that would give rise to the modern skyscraper. The disaster that seemed like an ending became one of the most consequential beginnings in the history of urban design, giving the world its first enforceable building codes and a skyline that still reaches for the sky.
How to play
- 1Find a word.Tap its first letter, then tap along to its last. The trail fills in and finishes itself when it spells a word. Or press the first letter and drag.
- 2Words run in straight lines.Across and down, and on the harder difficulties diagonally and backwards.
- 3It marks itself.Each word you find takes on its own soft color on the grid and is crossed off the list.
- 4Choose a difficulty.Relaxed, Classic or Challenging set those directions and how much the word list helps, never the grid size. Tap the A buttons at the top to enlarge the letters, or pinch the grid.
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