Meet Chicago's 1st Architect & One of the City's Oldest Buildings

The Page Bros. Building is one of two remaining iron-front buildings, and it was designed by a man who accidentally revolutionized fireproofing.

Each Thursday, discover an historic Chicago landmark and meet the people who built the Windy City. Includes audio recorded by the amazing Jim Goodrich.

In a neighborhood of skyscrapers, the Page Brothers Building is short. It’s seven stories tall, but it seems even shorter, since a couple of those floors are hidden by rumbling El tracks.

Its neighbor to the south, the glitzy Chicago Theatre, overshadows the relatively stoic structure, but if you take a closer look—and maybe even apply a magnet—you’ll discover one of the oldest buildings in the city and one of only two with a cast-iron front.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places and designated a Chicago Landmark, this building at the corner of State and Lake was built in 1872 and is a symbol of recovery after the Great Chicago Fire and a city reinventing itself. It’s also a legacy of Chicago’s first architect.

John Mills Van Osdel was born on July 31, 1811, in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of a carpenter, builder, and architect. When John was fourteen, his father moved to New York, but then suffered an injury that prevented him from working, so the teenager became the breadwinner. After his dad got better, the family joined him in the big city.

That’s when young John, already adept at carpentry, discovered “The Apprentice Library.” He dove into this gold mine, learning everything he could about architecture.

By the time he was twenty-five, John had moved back to Baltimore, married Caroline Gailer, taught drawing classes, and written a book on carpentry and stair building, and then returned to New York. He wasn’t there long before he met William B. Ogden, who was so impressed by the young man that he asked him to move to Chicago and design him a house.

John did, and when he arrived in 1837, the town had become a city and his friend had been elected the first mayor.