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Markers of Distinction

John Mills van Osdel
1811–1891
Architect

During the first hours of the Chicago Fire of
October 1871, John Mills Van Osdel rushed to the
Palmer House to bury his blueprints in a hole
covered with thick layers of sand and clay. Days
later, Van Osdel recovered his plans, allowing him
to reconstruct, in a brief two-year period before his
retirement, many of the buildings near State and
Lake streets that had made him Chicago’s most
well-known architect during the pre-fire period.

In 1836, William B. Odgen, Chicago’s first mayor,
brought Van Osdel from New York to design
Odgen’s home on the southeast corner of Wabash
Avenue and Erie Street. Despite the financial panic
of 1837, Van Osdel worked continuously, building
the first two grain-trade vessels in Chicago, the first
bridge across the North Branch of the Chicago River (1838), and pumps for
moving water along the Illinois and Michigan Canal. In 1844, Van Osdel
founded the first architecture firm in Chicago, and designed the First Baptist
Church and Rush Medical College (both 1844), the first city hall (1848), and
the Tremont House (1850).

Most of Van Osdel’s work has been demolished, except for the cast-iron north
facade of the Page Brothers Building at State and Lake Streets (1872).

Van Osdel lived at 2310 South Indiana Avenue.