September 12, 1973 – The Hyatt Regency, the first new major downtown
hotel in Chicago in more than 20 years is topped out as Mayor Richard J. Daley
attends the ceremonies on Wacker Drive. Hoisted
into place at the top of the new hotel is a piece of limestone, signed by Mayor
Daley and Jay Pritzker, chairman of the Hyatt Corporation, that has been
salvaged from an old Illinois Central Railroad warehouse that stood on the site
for over a hundred years, a structure that served as a shelter for thousands of
Chicago citizens who were trapped in the Chicago Fire of 1871. The hotel also stands on the spot where
Captain Nathan Heald, the commander of Fort Dearborn, ordered the fort’s
whiskey supply dumped in the water on August 13, 1812, an action that may have
been the chief provocation for the attack that two days later led to the death
of 63 soldiers and settlers. [Chicago Tribune, September 13, 1973]
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