History

The Palmer House®, A Hilton Hotel is located in Chicago’s downtown neighborhood known as the Loop, which is home to the city’s commercial core. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Loop is also the second largest commercial neighborhood in the entire country. The intersection of Madison and State Streets is the center of the Loop and, following the realignment of its street grid in 1909, marks the center of the entire City of Chicago.

The history of this Chicago neighborhood goes back much further, however. Around 12 indigenous groups have ties to the Western Great Lakes region, the most prominent being the Potawatomi people. In 1803, the U.S. Army founded Fort Dearborn in the vicinity of what is now DuSable Bridge (the DuSable Bridge itself is named for Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, a trader of African descent who built a trading post at the site two decades prior). Under the leadership of Chiefs Blackbird and Nuscotomeg, the Potawatomi destroyed the first iteration of the fort during the War of 1812. A small settlement of non-native settlers quickly grew around the second fort, built four years later. In 1821 and 1833, the Ottowa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi signed the Treaty of Chicago to cede land around Lake Michigan to the United States. The city of Chicago was incorporated with 4,000 inhabitants in 1837, and the canal, railroad, and stockyards pushed the city into a major population center by the second half of the 19th century.

Fort Dearborn, as well as the rest of early Chicago, was destroyed during the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The present-day version of the Loop rose from the ashes of that catastrophe as local businesspeople invested heavily into the redevelopment of downtown Chicago. Investors, including Potter Palmer, specifically funded the construction of many upscale skyscrapers and the city’s cable car. Two cable-car tracks, which turned around in the downtown district, gave the neighborhood the new moniker the “Chicago Loop” or simply the “Loop.” Perhaps the height of the Loop’s prestige transpired after World War II, when close to a million people visited the district every day for either business or personal life.

When Potter Palmer sought to rebuild his earlier hotel following the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, he employed architect John Mills Van Osdel to head the project. Often regarded by historians as the first “Chicago School” architect, Van Osdel was responsible for designing a number of noteworthy buildings throughout the city, including Tremont House and the Page Brothers Building. Potter tasked the talented architect to realize his grand vision of creating an extraordinary luxury hotel in downtown Chicago. The hotel stood as an engineering marvel when construction finally concluded four years later. Standing seven-stories tall, Van Osdel had largely relied on durable materials—such as iron and brick—to build Palmer’s masterpiece. So proud was Palmer that he touted the structure was the world’s only fireproof hotel.

Both Potter and Bertha Palmer had passed away by the 1920s and control of the Palmer House fell to their estate. Due to the ever-increasing number of travelers arriving in Chicago at that time, the Palmer Estate decided to raise a new, larger hotel on the site of Van Osdel’s structure. The group hired a team of architects from Holabird & Roche to design the building, which included a young Richard Neutra in a junior role. By the time Holabird & Roche finished their work in 1925, the third Palmer House was three times taller than its previous counterpart. The current building underwent another renovation more recently between 2007 and 2009. The architectural firms of Loebl Schlossman & Hackl and David Fleener Architects oversaw the full restoration, which sought to restore the hotel’s unique historical charm.

Perhaps the most striking architectural feature in the current Palmer House is the gorgeous ceiling in its central lobby. Many compared it to that of the Sistine Chapel of Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Measuring in at 28-feet high and 50-feet by 28-feet wide, it is approximately the size of a basketball court. These 21 distinct pieces of artwork were completed in Paris in 1926 by Louis (Pierre) Rigal. Three large circular panels illustrate classic romantic scenes from Greek mythology. Depicting Aphrodite, the goddess of love; Apollo, the god of sun, music, and poetry in his pursuit of Daphne; and the god Pluto in his pursuit of Persephone. There are nine vertical paintings of the Muses where each Muse depicts a joy of life. The 16 plaster frescos that frame the ceiling are done in the style of the 15th century Della Robbia family in the colors of Wedgewood blue, cinnabar, and celadon. The paintings that adorn the ceiling were completed in 1917 in France and later installed in the hotel’s ceiling in 1927.

Founding of the Big Ten Conference (1895): When several universities gathered at the Palmer House, they set into motion the founding of one of the most prestigious collegiate athletic conferences in the United States. The Big Ten Conference is also the most historic throughout the entire nation, predating the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) by a decade. James H. Smart, then President of Purdue University invited representatives and academics from six other Midwestern schools to discuss the formation of a intercollegiate body that could regulate their shared athletic competitions. The schools that originally attended were the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois, the University of Michigan, the University of Minnesota, Northwestern University, and the University of Wisconsin. Including the seven universities that joined later on, teams in the Big Ten Conference have won more than 300 NCAA titles among the 14 different sports within which they collectively participate.

• Mark Twain, renowned author known for writing The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
• L. Frank Baum, celebrated author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
• Oscar Wilde, poet and playwright known for writing such works as The Importance of Being Earnest.
• Sarah Bernhardt, renowned French stage actress.
• Eleonora Duse, famous Italian actress.
• Judy Garland, renowned actress and singer known for her roles in A Star is Born, Meet Me in St. Louis, and The Wizard of Oz.
• Ella Fitzgerald, famous singer often regarded as “First Lady of Song” or the “Queen of Jazz.”
• Harry Belafonte, singer known for his album Calypso.
• Louis Armstrong, renowned jazz musician regarded as one of the most influential figures in the genre.
• Frank Sinatra, celebrated actor and singer who sold over 150 million records worldwide.
• Yvette Guilbert, famous French cabaret singer.
• Liberace, renowned musician known for his extravagant performances in Las Vegas.
• William Jennings Bryan, renowned politician from Nebraska during the Gilded Age.
• Ulysses S. Grant, 18th President of the United States (1869 – 1877).
• James Garfield, 20th President of the United States (1881).
• Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th President of the United States (1885 – 1889 & 1893 – 1897).

• Curly Sue (1991)
• Miracle on 34th Street (1994)
• The Relic (1997)