Palmer House

The Palmer House traces its history to 1871, when the businessman Potter Palmer built the original hotel in downtown Chicago as a wedding gift for his wife, the socialite and philanthropist Bertha Palmer, only for the building to burn down in the Great Chicago Fire just thirteen days after it opened. Palmer rebuilt immediately, reopening a fireproof replacement in 1873 and famously advertising it as the only fireproof hotel in the world, a claim central to its early reputation among Chicago's rebuilding business community. The present building dates from 1925, designed by the Chicago firm of Holabird and Roche in a French Renaissance-influenced style, and its lobby ceiling carries an elaborate mural cycle painted by the French artist Louis Pierre Rigal, depicting allegorical and mythological scenes across numerous individual panels. Bertha Palmer used the hotel as a base for her extensive philanthropic and civic activities in Chicago, including her leadership of the Board of Lady Managers for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. The Palmer House is widely cited as the oldest continuously operating hotel in North America, tracing an unbroken operating history back to its 1871 opening despite the fire and subsequent rebuildings.