page_title: The Palmer House Hilton
section_title: Second Palmer House
hierarchical_section_title: The Palmer House Hilton / History / Second Palmer House
context_page_description: The Palmer House Hilton is a historic hotel in Chicago in the city's Loop area. Currently operating as the Palmer House - A Hilton Hotel, it is a Historic Hotels of America member, the official 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. It has also been dubbed the longest continuously operating hotel in North America.
context_section_description: 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." 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.  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.
caption: Stereoscopic view of the second Palmer House
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