Palmer House
the lobby
The were four Palmer Houses. Today's Palmer House, also located along Monroe
Street between State and Wabash, was built in the twenties. It was, with the
Grand Pacific and the Sherman House, one of the fanciest hotels in post-fire
Chicago. Its amenities included oversized rooms, luxurious decor, and sumptuous
meals served in grand style. The floor of the Palmer House barber shop was tiled
with silver dollars, and its service staff consisted largely of members of
Chicago's small black community, which comprised a little more than one percent
of the population of the city. Rudyard Kipling, who described Chicago as
"inhabited by savages," was equally scornful of this showplace: "They told me to
go to the Palmer House, which is a gilded and mirrored rabbit-warren, and there
I found a huge hall of tessellated marble, crammed with people talking about
money and spitting about everywhere. Other barbarians charged in and out of this
inferno with letters and telegrams in their hands, and yet others shouted at
each other. A man who had drunk quite as much as was good for him told me that
this was 'the finest hotel in the finest city on God Almighty's earth.'" Note
that the Palmer House advertised itself as the "only thoroughly fireproof hotel
in the United States."
grand stairway
