Palmer House Peacock Gate

Years ago, while we were still just dating in high school, my future father-in-law sprung for me to accompany his family to Chicago. The occasion was the King Tut exhibit at the Field museum. All I remember of it is seeing lots of gold. Anne and I have been back to Chicago again and we have taken our sons to the Field museum too, but we have never been back to the Palmer House where we stayed all those many years ago, at least until this week. I should mention, because Anne keeps reminding me of it, of how mortified were her youngest sister’s friends that said sister slept in a hotel room with a boy. Pictured are a pair of the famous Palmer House Peacock gates. There are a number of these gates situated about the hotel, but this pair came with a plaque:

This massive hotel, once the world’s largest, bears the name of Potter Palmer, one of Chicago’s most important businessmen. It is designed in the Classical Revival style with French Neoclassical influences. Interior spaces of note include the grandly scaled and elaborate hotel reception lobby [further photos to follow]. At the corner of State and Monroe streets is arguably Chicago’s finest-surviving historic retail storefront and interior, originally built for C.D. Peacock jewelers.