Home Insurance Company, First Skyscraper, Chicago, 1885
Poster showing America's first skyscraper, 1885. The Home Insurance Building was a skyscraper in Chicago, United States, designed by William Le Baron Jenney in 1884, for the Home Insurance Company in New York. Completed a year later, the building is generally noted as the first tall building to be supported both inside and outside by a fireproof structural steel and metal frame, which included reinforced concrete. Because of the building's unique architecture and weight-bearing frame, it is considered the one of the world's first skyscrapers. It had 10 stories and rose to a height of 138 ft (42 m). In 1891, two floors were added. The building opened in 1885 and was demolished 47 years later in 1931
Picture No
12697444
Media ID
47703845
Size
4500px x 5895px
(7.6MB)
Credit
Library of Congress/Science Source/Mary Evans





























