{"nrhp_refnum":"78003181","name":"Chicago Board of Trade Building","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"141 W. Jackson Blvd.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Chicago","county":"Cook County","state":"IL","lat":40.97722106900005,"lon":-87.62353414499995,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1978-06-16","is_nhl":true,"nhl_designated_date":"1978-06-02","areas_of_significance":["Commerce","Agriculture"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A 45-story steel-frame skyscraper at 141 West Jackson Boulevard, Chicago, designed by Holabird and Root. It was planned in the mid-1920s, begun in 1929 and completed about 1930, on the site of the Board's earlier 1885 building.","why_significant":"The building houses the Chicago Board of Trade, described as the central grain exchange of the United States and the largest commodity exchange in the world. The Board pioneered \"to arrive\" and \"futures\" contracts, which marked the emergence of the modern commodity exchange. The building is also a prime example of late-1920s skyscraper architecture, called variously Art Deco, Modernistic or Vertical style.","narrative":"Rising 45 stories at 141 West Jackson Boulevard in Chicago, this steel-frame skyscraper clad in grey Indiana limestone was designed by Holabird and Root and built from 1929 to 1930. A pyramidal roof carries an aluminum statue of Ceres, the Roman goddess of grain and harvest. Its nine-story base has stylized cattle heads, a clock and figures symbolizing wheat and corn, and a three-story Art Deco lobby is finished in seven varieties of marble. The tower sits above a trading room supported by six 227-ton trusses. The building replaced an 1885 structure by W. W. Boyington and is the headquarters of the Chicago Board of Trade, founded in 1848. The Board brought order to the city's grain trade, introduced \"to arrive\" contracts that developed into futures trading, and became a national price standard. It came under federal regulation with the Grain Futures Act of 1922. The building is significant for both commerce and architecture.","period_of_significance":"1800-1899; 1900- (Site: 1885-present; Building: 1930-present)","architect_builder":"Holabird-Root (Holabird and Root)","architectural_style":"Late 1920s skyscraper style, variously described as \"Cubistic,\" \"Modernistic,\" \"Art Deco,\" \"1920's Modern\" and \"Vertical style\"","criteria":[],"status_note":"In use as the Board of Trade's headquarters, with extensive interior renovations to floors four through nine; the trading room was reduced from six to three stories in 1974.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:34.993815-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/2/8915/28891502/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_IL/78003181_NHL.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/78003181/50c60c5479-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/78003181/50c60c5479-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Joe Ravi (Shutterstock iStock Dreamstime)","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chicago_Board_Of_Trade_Building_(altered_filtration_version).jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Joe Ravi (Shutterstock iStock Dreamstime)</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chicago_Board_Of_Trade_Building_(altered_filtration_version).jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28891502","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Board_of_Trade_Building","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2224700"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/illinois/cook-county/chicago-board-of-trade-building-78003181/"}