By the Chicago Department of Planning and Development

Like all social and cultural movements, historic preservation in Chicago has a unique evolution, one that preceded by decades the national preservation movement that coalesced in the mid-20th century.

One of the city’s earliest preservation questions involved the demolition of the Green Tree Tavern in 1905. Built in 1833 near Canal and Lake streets and later moved to Milwaukee Avenue around 1880, the wood-frame tavern was one of the city’s earliest buildings. By 1905, it was in poor condition and some Chicagoans spoke in favor of preserving its legacy as one of the city’s founding structures. At the time, no legislation existed to protect the building and it ultimately collapsed.

Another preservation contest emerged in 1920 for a more prominent building: the Palace of Fine Arts in Jackson Park, one of the few surviving buildings from the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. After the exposition, the Beaux-Arts style structure became the first home of the Field Museum of Natural History. After the museum moved out in 1920, the South Parks Board signaled plans to demolish it. In 1921, the Committee for Restoration of the Fine Arts Building of the World's Columbian Exposition organized to rehabilitate the plaster-clad structure, sparking a spirited public debate about the merits of its preservation. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) and Illinois Federation of Women's Clubs donated professional services and money to support restoration, leading to the building’s successful reconstruction in stone by 1933, when it became home to the Museum of Science and Industry — today an official landmark.

In 1937, the 100th anniversary of Chicago’s founding renewed public interest in historic sites. A Charter Jubilee Committee marked 73 locations with plaques that “identify and fix for posterity … the sites where stirring historical events took place,” such as the first school, post office, rail depot, and inns, even if the buildings no longer survived. The plaques also commemorated locations of historic events, like the site of the origin of the Great Chicago Fire and the Fort Dearborn Tragedy.

1950s

By the mid-1900s, national trends slowly raised public awareness about the loss of historic resources in American cities, including Chicago, in part due to federal expressway construction and urban renewal projects that often decimated entire neighborhoods. For example, in 1960, 55 acres of the Tri-Taylor neighborhood were cleared to create the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle (now UIC). The passage of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) in 1966 forced federal agencies to at least consider historic preservation in their undertakings and endeavor to avoid negative outcomes.

While the federal government sought to limit its impact on historic properties, private property owners were not so constrained. Post-depression construction resumed in the 1950s, often replacing first generation, post-Fire buildings that represented the Chicago School of Architecture. Given post-war optimism, there was initially little public interest in the loss of these historic structures, except for academics like Hugh Dalziel Duncan and Tom Stauffer, as well as Marian Alschuler Despres, who was the daughter of early Chicago architect Alfred Alschuler. The group convinced Marian’s husband, Ald. Leon M. Depres (5th), to consider legislation to support historic preservation.

As Despres explored options in 1956, the internationally acclaimed Robie House — built in 1909 and not yet 50 years old — was threatened with demolition. Despres drafted an ordinance to establish a landmarks commission that could designate buildings of “great worth” but without the power to stop demolitions, which appeased the real estate community.

The ordinance passed on Jan. 18, 1957, leading to the creation of a temporary, eight-member Commission on Chicago Historical and Architectural Landmarks (CCHAL) that would go on to recommend 39 landmarks by 1962. Each was marked with a stainless-steel plaque.

These early designations emphasized the Chicago School of Architecture, especially early skyscrapers like the Monadnock and Reliance buildings, Prairie School buildings like the Robie House, and other icons that were considered precursors to modern architecture, like the Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co. building. The works of prominent local figures like Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright were well represented, as were buildings that were very young at the time, such as the 1957 Inland Steel building, then only a few years old.

1960s

In addition to the CCHAL, non-governmental organizations were having preservation success in the 1960s. The Auditorium Theatre Council was established in 1960 to raise funds for restoration of Adler & Sullivan’s Auditorium Theatre building. And, in 1966, the Chicago Architectural Foundation formed from the successful effort to save the H. H. Richardson-designed Glessner House. Today known as the Chicago Architecture Center, the organization continues to be a leader in public education about architecture.

A major event that advanced the historic preservation movement in Chicago involved opposition to the demolition of the Garrick Theater. Among the 39 landmarks identified by the CCHAL, the 17-story structure was designed in 1892 by Adler & Sullivan as the Schiller Building. It included a theater and commercial offices, and like many Loop buildings, it struggled to find tenants long after the Great Depression. Movie operators Balaban and Katz purchased the building in 1957 and three years later announced plans to demolish it, citing financial losses.

Opposition was led by early preservation advocate and photographer Richard Nickel, who helped found the Chicago Heritage Committee, which included a number of academics. Press coverage, much of it sympathetic to the protest, attracted the support of Chicagoans outside of academic circles. The protest included picketing, letter writing, and engagement with City officials and the CCHAL. The City of Chicago’s effort to delay the demolition and fund its acquisition did not survive a lawsuit filed by the property owner. The Garrick was demolished in 1962, though Nickel and members of the Chicago Heritage Committee managed to save fragments of the building’s ornament.

The loss of the Garrick highlighted the toothless nature of the city’s 1957 landmarks ordinance. It also gave rise to a preservation community, focused political attention on historic preservation, and contributed to increased media interest and public awareness.

For Chicago to pass a landmarks ordinance with “teeth,” the State of Illinois first had to pass enabling legislation. In 1963, the state passed such legislation, but it wasn’t until Jan. 17, 1968, that City Council passed a Chicago Landmarks Ordinance. By then, the Garrick and three of the 39 buildings landmarked under the 1957 commission had been demolished, all within the Loop: the 1917 Edison Phonograph Shop, designed with Prairie School details by Purcell, Feick, and Elmslie; the 1893 William Meyer Building, designed as a wholesale loft structure by Adler and Sullivan; and the 1899 Cable Building, designed with Chicago School details by Holabird & Roche.

The new, permanent Commission on Chicago Landmarks met for the first time in May 1968. Appointed by Mayor Richard J. Daley, its nine members possessed the authority to recommend landmark designations to City Council while also regulating alteration and demolitions. Despite these powers, historic preservation as a profession was still in its infancy, lacking formal procedures, standards and staff.

Among the commission’s first acts was the creation of an advisory committee to create an inventory of properties worthy of designation. The committee included Nickel, architectural historian Carl Condit, and architects Bill Hasbrouck, George Terp and Ben Weese. Based on the committee’s recommendations, the commission’s early years focused on high-rise commercial structures —especially of the Chicago School of Architecture.

1970s

One of these early priorities was the Chicago Stock Exchange building, designed by Adler and Sullivan and completed in 1894. In 1970, the building changed hands, and the new owner planned to demolish it. The Landmarks Commission recommended to City Council that the building be protected as an official landmark. Help came from the newly formed non-profit advocacy organization Landmarks Preservation Council (now known as Landmarks Illinois) and a special committee appointed by Mayor Daley to explore preservation options, which delayed demolition for more than a year. Ultimately, City Council rejected the commission’s recommendation, largely on the assumption that a designation would require the City to acquire and restore the building at great cost.

Before demolition began in 1972, Nickel was hired by the commission to complete photo-documentation of the building. On a visit to the salvage fragments as the building was being demolished, Nickel was killed by falling masonry in a partial collapse inside the structure, one of the most tragic episodes in Chicago preservation history.

Despite the loss of the Stock Exchange, the 1970s saw the commission designate 43 individual landmarks, including works by Sullivan, Wright, William LeBaron Jenney, Daniel Burnham and John Wellborn Root. In addition to Chicago and Prairie school architectural styles, the commission also embraced other styles, including Classical Revival-style structures like the Chicago Public Library, which was spared from demolition in part through a 1976 landmark designation.

Ten landmark districts designated by the commission in the 1970s ranged from the high-style Prairie Avene and Pullman districts to the Old Town Triangle District, which largely consists of workers cottages. Each designation was largely supported by local property owners, which expanded the constituency of historic preservation.

1980s

In the 1980s, City Council expressed concerns that the commission was focusing too much attention downtown at the expense of properties with historic value in the rest of the city. In response, the commission initiated a Herculean, 12-year survey of citywide historic resources starting in 1983. Using local and federal funding, the Chicago Historic Resources Survey (CHRS) enlisted surveyors that evaluated every single building in Chicago that was constructed prior to 1940. The 17,300 results were published in 1996, with each building documented and rated for historic and architectural merit through a color-coded system.

The CHRS resulted in several new designations outside of downtown and a broader awareness of historic spaces such as Thalia Hall in Pilsen, First Baptist Congregational Church on the Near West Side, and the Villa District on the Northwest Side. Later, the CHRS was used as a basis for a demolition-delay ordinance that requires a 90-day hold on demolition permits for orange- and red-rated buildings, which helps ensure that no important historic resource can be demolished in Chicago without consideration as to whether it should or could be preserved.

In 1987, the landmarks ordinance was amended to authorize protection of buildings while under consideration by the commission for landmark designation, add economic hardship provisions, and to require review of new construction projects in landmark districts.

1990s

In the 1990s, the commission doubled the number of landmark designations compared to the previous decade and expanded its neighborhood focus to expressly include cultural diversity, including the Black Metropolis-Bronzeville District and the On Leong Merchants Association building in Chinatown. Commission efforts also became increasingly associated with economic development projects eligible for local, state, and federal development incentives due to their City of Chicago landmark status. By the early 2000s, the commission was recognizing the best landmark rehabilitation projects citywide with annual Preservation Excellence Awards.

2000s

The commission’s designation program continued into the 21st century with an expanded focus that includes building typologies located across the city, such as neighborhood banks, firehouses, and brewery-tied houses; places associated with the city’s industrial heritage, such as the Fulton-Randolph Market District; places associated with diverse communities, such as the LGBTQ Legacy Walk and The Warehouse dance club; and places associated with immigrant groups, including the Paseo Boricua Gateway Flags and the Little Village Arch.

Although much has changed since the debate over the Green Tree Tavern, one thing remains a constant more than a century later: Chicago remains committed to preserving its architectural and historic legacy for future generations. As of early 2024, more than 384 individual buildings are protected by the Landmarks Ordinance, along with approximately 10,000 buildings located within 62 landmark districts and nine district extensions.