The Building
The two-story Wigwam was built by Chicago business leaders to attract the 1860 Convention. It was a temporary structure, built entirely of wood in little more than a month, and it could accommodate 10–12,000 people. The building was used for political and patriotic meetings during the Convention and the American Civil War. It also served as a retail space until its demolition, some time between 1867 and 1871.
Following the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, another "Wigwam" building at Washington (one city block south of Lake) and Market served as the temporary home of the Chicago Board of Trade.
Antebellum custom was to call a political campaign headquarters a Wigwam. Wigwam is also a Native American word for "temporary shelter".
Read more about this topic: Wigwam (Chicago)
Famous quotes containing the word building:
“The mention of one apartment in a building naturally introduces an enquiry or discourse concerning the others: and if we think of a wound, we can scarcely forbear reflecting on the pain which follows it.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“Are we not madder than those first inhabitants of the plain of Sennar? We know that the distance separating the earth from the sky is infinite, and yet we do not stop building our tower.”
—Denis Diderot (1713–1784)