{"nrhp_refnum":"80001347","name":"Ludington Building","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"1104 S. Wabash Ave.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Chicago","county":"Cook County","state":"IL","lat":41.86896193100006,"lon":-87.62639385499995,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1980-05-08","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"An eight-story steel-frame office building at 1104 South Wabash Avenue, on the southwest corner of Wabash Avenue and 11th Street in Chicago, built in 1892 and designed by William LeBaron Jenney (Jenney & Mundie).","why_significant":"The nomination argues the building is a well-preserved work of William LeBaron Jenney, described as the father of the Chicago School of Architecture and inventor of steel skeleton construction. Its importance has grown as many of Jenney's other major works have been demolished or altered. Carl Condit praised its elevations as the most crisp and elegant of all Jenney's designs.","narrative":"Rising eight stories at the southwest corner of Wabash Avenue and 11th Street in Chicago, the Ludington Building was completed in 1892 to designs by William LeBaron Jenney. Nelson Ludington, a lumberman from Escanaba, Michigan, commissioned it, and his family owned it until 1960. It has a steel frame and foundations designed to carry eight more stories. The street facades are faced in terra cotta and stone, now painted, with large areas of glass set in slim mullions and spandrels. Ornament is concentrated at the shopfronts and the cornice. Jenney is regarded as the founder of the Chicago School and an inventor of steel skeleton construction for tall buildings. Of his seven major central Chicago office and store buildings, only three survive intact, which raises the Ludington's standing. Carl Condit called its elevations the most elegant of Jenney's designs. The cornice and original shopfronts remain, and only the entrance has been significantly altered. The building is still used for offices.","period_of_significance":"1800-1899","architect_builder":"Jenney & Mundie","architectural_style":"Chicago School","criteria":[],"status_note":"Continues to be used as office space; exterior largely intact apart from a modernized entrance and paint over the facade.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:35.645562-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/46/8919/28891946/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_IL/80001347.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/80001347/14411a526a-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/80001347/14411a526a-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"User:TonyTheTiger; cropped by Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:54, 16 February 2011 (UTC)","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:20070613_Ludington_Building_crop.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">User:TonyTheTiger; cropped by Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:54, 16 February 2011 (UTC)</a>, <a href=\"http://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:20070613_Ludington_Building_crop.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28891946","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludington_Building","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3266057"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/illinois/cook-county/ludington-building-80001347/"}