The skyscraper has changed the face of urban architecture--and it all started in Chicago. Born out of the ashes of Chicago's Great Fire of 1871, the first skyscraper, the Home Insurance Building located at the northeast corner of LaSalle and Adams Streets, was completed in 1885. Designed by William Le Baron Jenney, the nine-story building had a metal load-carrying structural frame, the development of which led to steel-frame skeletal construction...

"Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837, and for the years that followed before the Great Chicago Fire, the city grew slowly and steadily, finally becoming for a brief period the second largest city in America. After the Fire in 1871, the city rebuilt quickly and technological changes came with brick buildings, a more modern downtown and transportation system. This was the prologue to the concept of this new book about how Chicago has changed...