The Palmer House Hilton

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This article is about the hotel in Chicago. For other uses, see Palmer House (disambiguation). For Potter Palmer's mansion, see Palmer Mansion.
Palmer House - A Hilton Hotel
Palmer House (7184381863).jpg
The Palmer House Hotel
Location17 E Monroe Street, Chicago, Illinois
Coordinates41°52′49″N 87°37′37″W / 41.880344°N 87.626910°W / 41.880344; -87.626910Coordinates: 41°52′49″N 87°37′37″W / 41.880344°N 87.626910°W / 41.880344; -87.626910
AreaChicago Loop
Built1871
Rebuilt1923–1925
ArchitectJohn M. Van Osdel (2nd)
Holabird & Roche (current)
Chicago Landmark
DesignatedDecember 13, 2006
The Palmer House Hilton is located in Chicago metropolitan area
The Palmer House Hilton
Location of Palmer House - A Hilton Hotel in Chicago metropolitan area

The Palmer House – A Hilton Hotel is a historic hotel in Chicago's Loop area. It is a member of the Historic Hotels of America[1] program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The Palmer House was the city's first hotel with elevators, and the first hotel with electric light bulbs and telephones in the guest rooms. Although the hotel has been dubbed the longest continuously operating hotel in North America, it closed in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic[2] and reopened on June 17, 2021.[3]

History[]

Palmer House Hotel Ladies Entrance (19 September 1903)

Three Palmer House hotels have been located on State Street in Chicago.

First Palmer House[]

Stereoscopic view of the first Palmer House

The first was built as a wedding present from Potter Palmer to his bride Bertha Honoré. Located at State and Quincy,[4] it opened on September 26, 1870.[5] It burned down one year later on October 9, 1871 in the Great Chicago Fire. Palmer had already begun construction of a new hotel at State and Monroe prior to the Great Chicago Fire.[6][7]

Stereoscopic view of the ruins of the first Palmer House after the Great Chicago Fire

Second Palmer House[]

Stereoscopic view of the second Palmer House

Designed by architect John M. Van Osdel, the second Palmer House Hotel was seven stories. Its amenities included oversized rooms, luxurious decor, and sumptuous meals served in grand style. The floor of its barber shop was tiled and silver dollars were embedded in a diamond pattern. Constructed mainly of iron and brick, the hotel was widely advertised as, "The World's Only Fire Proof Hotel."[8] Famous visitors included presidential hopefuls James Garfield, Grover Cleveland, Ulysses S. Grant, William Jennings Bryan, and William McKinley; writers Mark Twain, L. Frank Baum, and Oscar Wilde; actresses Sarah Bernhardt and Eleonora Duse, and French cabaret singer Yvette Guilbert in 1897.[citation needed] It was completed in 1875. An 1895 meeting at the hotel of faculty representatives from various Midwestern universities resulted in the founding of the Big Ten Conference.

Palmer House Business Card front c1800
Palmer House Business Card back c1800

Third Palmer House[]

Palmer House Lobby

By the 1920s, the business in downtown Chicago could support a much larger facility, and the Palmer Estate decided to erect a new 25-story hotel. They hired Holabird & Roche to design the building, and their team included architect Richard Neutra in a junior role. Between 1923 and 1925, the hotel was rebuilt on the same site.[9]

In December 1945, Conrad Hilton bought the Palmer House for $20 million and it was thereafter known as The Palmer House Hilton. In 2005, Hilton sold the property to Thor Equities, but it remains part of the Hilton chain.[10]

The architecture firms of Loebl Schlossman & Hackl and David Fleener Architects completely renovated and restored the hotel between 2007 and 2009.[11] The total cost was over $170 million.[12] The hotel has a total of 1,639 guest rooms, making it the second-largest hotel in the city after the Hyatt Regency Chicago.[13] It has recently had its name adjusted to Palmer House - A Hilton Hotel.

In 1970, the hotel was the site of the murder of Evelyn Okubo, a young Japanese-American racial justice activist attending a Japanese American Citizens League convention held there.[14]

Entertainers who have appeared at the Palmer House's Empire Room have included Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Liberace, Ella Fitzgerald, Maurice Chevalier, Lena Horne, Nat King Cole, Louis Armstrong, Harry Belafonte, Sammy Davis Jr., Peggy Lee, Carol Channing, Bobby Darin, Jimmy Durante, Sonny & Cher, Liza Minnelli, Dionne Warwick, Sophie Tucker, Tommy Dorsey, Phyllis Diller, Lou Rawls, Dick Gregory (1963), Frankie Laine (1963), Josh White (1966), Tony Bennett (1968), Florence Henderson (1968), Donald O'Connor (1971), Jerry Lewis (1971), Jane Powell (1972), The Supremes (1972), Lorna Luft (1972), Trini Lopez (1973), The Lettermen (1973) and many others.

In August 2020 Wells Fargo filed suit against the hotel's owner, Thor Equities, for defaulting on a $333 million commercial mortgage.[15] Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the hotel closed in March 2020.[16][17]

The hotel reopened to the public on June 17, 2021[18] following a series of upgrades to its interior, including a renovation to its indoor pool.

See also[]

Chocolate brownie, invented at the hotel for the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893.

References[]

  1. ^ Historic Hotels of America [1]
  2. ^ https://chicago.suntimes.com/business/2020/9/1/21417258/palmer-house-foreclosure-hotel-hospitality-industry-trouble-coronavirus
  3. ^ https://newsroom.hilton.com/hilton/news/two-historic-hilton-hotels-reopen-in-chicago
  4. ^ "Palmer's 'State Street House'", Chicago Tribune. Vol. 23, No. 345. June 12, 1870. p. 3.
  5. ^ "Opening of the Palmer House", Chicago Tribune. Vol. 24, No. 85. September 27, 1870. p. 4.
  6. ^ "Building Projects", Chicago Tribune. March 20, 1871. p. 4.
  7. ^ "New Chicago: Progress of the Last Year", Chicago Tribune. October 9, 1873. p. 2.
  8. ^ Susan Bard Hall. "The Palmer House". Away.com Historic Traveller. Primedia Publications. Archived from the original on 2007-02-02. Retrieved 2007-06-21. It opened as The Palmer, at the northwest corner of State and Quincy streets, with 225 rooms on September 26, 1871. Thirteen days later, it burned in the Great Chicago Fire.
  9. ^ Berger, Molly W. "Hotels" at the Encyclopedia of Chicago
  10. ^ "Thor Buys Hilton's Palmer House". Los Angeles Times. Bloomberg News. August 17, 2005. Retrieved 2017-10-06. Thor Equities ...said it had bought the Palmer House Hilton...
  11. ^ Weiner, Michael A. (Nov–Dec 2007). "Palmer House Hilton in process of restoring aging infrastructure". Hospitality Construction. 2 (6): 38. Archived from the original on 2014-08-08. Retrieved 25 July 2014.
  12. ^ Bernstein, Fred A. (October 25, 2008). "A Hotel Looks Back to Its 1920s Glamour". The New York Times. Retrieved October 7, 2017.
  13. ^ "Chicago's Largest Hotels" (PDF). Crain's Chicago Business. December 31, 2006.
  14. ^ Harden, Jacelyn (2003). Double Cross: Japanese Americans in Black and White Chicago. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. p. 128. ISBN 9781452905969. Retrieved 2017-09-13.
  15. ^ Palmer House foreclosure points to industry’s trouble Retrieved September 28, 2020
  16. ^ Grant, Peter (2020-09-22). "Grand Chicago Hotel in Foreclosure, a Symbol of Covid-19's Toll on Hospitality Industry". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2021-01-14.
  17. ^ Rodkin, Dennis (September 20, 2020). "What's That Building? The Palmer House Hilton". wbez.org. WBEZ. Retrieved 2021-01-25.
  18. ^ https://newsroom.hilton.com/hilton/news/two-historic-hilton-hotels-reopen-in-chicago

Further reading[]

  • Robert V. Allegrini, Chicago's Grand Hotels: The Palmer House Hilton, The Drake, and The Hilton Chicago (ISBN 0738539546)
   McHale, Conor, 'America's Greatest Hotel Lobbies -- Palmer House Hilton'

External links[]

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