Illinois Landmarks Added to National Register of Historic Places

Residential Hotels in Chicago, 1880-1930 Multiple Property Cover Document

Residential hotels constructed in Chicago between roughly 1880 and 1930 served as an indispensable but rarely celebrated component of the city’s housing stock. During the first decades of the twentieth century, Chicago’s population more than doubled. The need for housing resulted in the development of the Chicago bungalow belt, larger courtyard apartment buildings, and the creation of sub-standard tenement conditions in many of the city’s oldest residential neighborhoods. In the midst of this tremendous expansion and proliferation, residential hotels provided an alternate housing option for middle-class and blue collar workers that challenged the conventional assumptions about what makes an American home.  A Multiple Property Cover Document that established the significance of these properties was approved by the National Park Service. Four residential hotels that met the qualifications outlined in the document were listed in the National Register: the Carling Hotel (1926), the Covent Hotel (1915), the Mark Twain Hotel (1930) and the Marshall Hotel (1926).