The Palmer House Hilton
History
The current Palmer House® a Hilton Hotel is the third Palmer House Hotel to occupy the corner at State and Monroe Streets in downtown Chicago. The first hotel opened in 1871 and was the gift of Palmer Potter to his bride, Bertha Honoré. Tragically the hotel burned to the ground just thirteen days later in the Great Chicago Fire. Palmer immediately secured a loan to begin construction on a grand, seven-story hotel, which he located across the street from the original. Known for its sumptuous accommodations and boasting every luxury amenity of the day, the floor of the Palmer House’s barber shop was said to have been tiled in silver dollars. For fifty years, the hotel was a mecca for Chicago society and visiting luminaries such as Ulysses S. Grant, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens and Oscar Wilde. By the 1920s, the decision was made to erect a new 25-story building. Between 1924 and 1927, the hotel was rebuilt on the same site but in stages, so not to lose a single day of operations. The hotel was purchased in 1945 by legendary hotelier Conrad Hilton and it remains one of the company’s flagship properties.
