Chicago Federal Building
- Architect
- Henry Ives Cobb
- Year
- 1905
- Style
- Beaux-Arts
- City
- Chicago, IL
The Chicago Federal Building was built between 1898 and 1905 in the Loop to house the Midwest's federal courts, main post office, and other government bureaus, designed by Henry Ives Cobb in the Beaux-Arts style. It replaced an 1880 post office, courthouse, and customhouse that Chicago's post-1893 population boom had overwhelmed, straining a post office that grew from 998 clerks and 935 carriers to 1,319 clerks and 1,096 carriers by the time Congress funded the new building.
the building
A push from the postmaster. Postmaster Washington Hesing led the campaign for the new building, backed by civic leaders and Illinois's members of Congress, after agencies in the old federal building complained of crumbling plaster, broken plumbing, and flooding caused by poor planning and shoddy construction.
the style
Cobb designed the building in the Beaux-Arts manner favored for federal architecture of the period, giving the Loop a monumental seat for the courts, post office, and government bureaus it replaced.
More on Beaux-Artsthe architect
Henry Ives Cobb was a Chicago architect who designed the Federal Building, completed in 1905 on a site bounded by Dearborn, Adams, and Clark Streets and Jackson Boulevard.
significance
The 1905 building stood for six decades before it was demolished in 1965 and replaced by the Kluczynski Federal Building.
nearby
- Everett McKinley Dirksen United States Courthouse
- Consumers Building
- Century Building
- Marquette Building
- Kluczynski Federal Building
- Monadnock Building