page_title: La Salle Hotel
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: La Salle Hotel / History
caption_attribution_description: English: President Calvin Coolidge visits the Historical La Salle Hotel in Chicago, 1925
context_page_description: The La Salle Hotel was a historic hotel that was located on the northwest corner of La Salle Street and Madison Street in the Chicago Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois, United States. It was situated to the southwest of Chicago City Hall and in very close proximity to St. Peter's Church. It was built between 1908 and 1909 by Holabird & Roche, contemporaneously with the Blackstone Hotel designed by Benjamin Marshall in a very similar style and at the time was Chicago's finest hotel.
  After a major fire in the hotel in June 1946, it was rebuilt at a cost of US$2 million and reopened in July 1947; it flourished for 29 more years, until it was demolished in 1976 to make room for office towers.
context_section_description: Chicago's luxury hotels evolved as part of the architectural revolution that found form as  skyscraper buildings. The La Salle Hotel built between 1908 and 1909 as a 23-story, 1,000 bedroom building in the Chicago Loop community area of Chicago. the site on the northwest corner of North LaSalle and West Madison Streets, had previously been occupied by the five-story La Salle Building from 1872 to 1908 and the adjacent Oriental Hall, a Masonic temple, from 1873. Known as the “Empire Block,” it housed the Metropolitan National Bank. 
  The hotel was named in honor of Robert Cavelier de LaSalle. Built at a cost of approximately $3,500,000, or 44 cents per cubic foot, the architects were Holabird & Roche while the engineers were the firm of Purdy & Henderson. At one time Chicago's largest hotel, the LaSalle was opened in 1909 by the family of John Paul Stevens. It was run by Ernest J. Stevens, father of the Supreme Court Justice.
  The hotel was  planned, designed and built in the commercial district of Chicago as an upscale hotel for an elite and influential  clientele, with luxurious and stately walnut-paneled  rooms and lobbies. An elegant roof top garden was planned as a major attraction. When it was opened in 1909, it was hailed as the "largest, safest, and most modern hotel west of New York." The Republican Party of Illinois had their offices located in the luxurious Blue Fountain Room of the hotel. During one of his long visits to Chicago, President William Howard Taft stayed in the presidential suite on the third floor of this hotel, converting it into de facto White House. A formal visit was also paid to the hotel by President Calvin Coolidge and his wife in 1925. Other visitors came as convention guests.
  However, all this history ended with a disastrous fire (see below) in the hotel on June 5, 1946, which was compounded by the fact that the hotel did not live up to its professed "safest hotel" claim, as there was lack of basic fire prevention, warning and firefighting facilities. At the time of the fire, guests occupied 886 rooms of the hotel, with 103 employees at work. After the fire, the hotel was rebuilt and renamed, at a cost of US $2 million, reopening in July 1947 and flourishing for 29 more years until it was razed in 1976 to construct office towers. The famous Silver Grill Cocktail Lounge in the hotel was renamed "The Hour Glass" after renovation.
  Among other events that took place at the hotel, include the 1928 Prohibition Party's National Convention July 10–12, 1928. William F. Varney was made the party's Presidential nominee.
caption: President Calvin Coolidge at the hotel in 1925
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