Sauganash Hotel is a former hotel; regarded as the first hotel in Chicago, Illinois. It was located at Wolf Point

Wolf Point, Chicago

Wolf Point is the location at the confluence of the North, South and Main Branches of the Chicago River in the present day Near North Side, Loop, and Near West Side community areas of Chicago. This fork in the river is historically important in the development of early Chicago...

 in the present day Loop community area

Community areas of Chicago

Community areas in Chicago refers to the work of the Social Science Research Committee at University of Chicago which has unofficially divided the City of Chicago into 77 community areas. These areas are well-defined and static...

 at the intersection of the north, south and main branches of the Chicago River

Chicago River

The Chicago River is a system of rivers and canals with a combined length of that runs through the city of the same name, including its center . Though not especially long, the river is notable for being the reason why Chicago became an important location, as the link between the Great Lakes and...

. The location at West Lake Steet and North Wacker Drive

Wacker Drive

Wacker Drive is a major street in Chicago, Illinois, United States, running along the south side of the main branch and the east side of the south branch of the Chicago River...

 (formerly Market Street) was designated a Chicago Landmark

Chicago Landmark

Chicago Landmark is a designation of the Mayor of Chicago and the Chicago City Council for historic buildings and other sites in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Listed sites are selected after meeting a combination of criteria, including historical, economic, architectural, artistic, cultural,...

 on November 6, 2002. The hotel changed proprietors often in its twenty-year existence and briefly served as Chicago's first theater. It was named after Billy Caldwell, an interpreter in the British Indian Department.

History

Mark and Monique Beaubien, the owners and builders of the hotel, were French Indian traders. In 1826 they moved to Chicago on the advice of Mark's brother Jean, who lived at Fort Dearborn

Fort Dearborn

Fort Dearborn was a United States fort built in 1803 beside the Chicago River in what is now Chicago, Illinois. It was constructed by troops under Captain John Whistler and named in honor of Henry Dearborn, then United States Secretary of War. The original fort was destroyed following the Battle of...

. The Beaubiens settled in a small cabin on Wolf's Point and continued their trade with the Indians. They built a tavern

Tavern

A tavern is a place of business where people gather to drink alcoholic beverages and be served food, and in some cases, where travelers receive lodging....

 on the east bank of the south branch of the Chicago River at the point where the north and south branches meet. The tavern was named Eagle Exchange Tavern. In 1831, they added a frame to the log structure to create Chicago's first hotel, the Sauganash Hotel. When completed, it was one of only two structures containing dwellings on the south side of the main branch of the Chicago River, the other being that of Col. John B. Beaubien, Mark's brother. The city had only twelve houses at the time. The hotel immediately became a famous business in Chicago. The hotel became known as the largest and finest Hotel in Chicago. Immediately adjacent to the hotel's public bar was Chicago's first drug store.

The Greek Revival

Greek Revival architecture

The Greek Revival was an architectural movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in Northern Europe and the United States. A product of Hellenism, it may be looked upon as the last phase in the development of Neoclassical architecture...

 trim of the new hotel contrasted with the other eleven buildings of Chicago. The symmetry of its facade was typical to contemporary Greek Revival practiced on the East Coast. Juliette Kinzie, who came to Chicago from Connecticut

Connecticut

Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...

 in 1831, described it as "a pretentios white two-story building, with bright blue wood shutters, the admiration of all the little circle at Wolf Point". The clientele of the hotel transcended race with natives and settlers enjoying each other's company.

The flow of travelers and settlers intensified with the end of the Black Hawk War

Black Hawk War

The Black Hawk War was a brief conflict fought in 1832 between the United States and Native Americans headed by Black Hawk, a Sauk leader. The war erupted soon after Black Hawk and a group of Sauks, Meskwakis, and Kickapoos known as the "British Band" crossed the Mississippi River into the U.S....

 in 1832. In 1833 the hotel housed election of the first town trustees of the newly formed Town of Chicago. Beaubien kept the Hotel until 1834 and during his ownership he provided regular entertainment with his violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

. On August 18, 1835, two years after the Potawatomi

Potawatomi

The Potawatomi are a Native American people of the upper Mississippi River region. They traditionally speak the Potawatomi language, a member of the Algonquian family. In the Potawatomi language, they generally call themselves Bodéwadmi, a name that means "keepers of the fire" and that was applied...

 natives signed the treaty agreeing to be moved to a reservation

Indian reservation

An American Indian reservation is an area of land managed by a Native American tribe under the United States Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs...

 beyond the Mississippi River

Mississippi River

The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...

 in northwestern Missouri, they selected 800 braves to perform their last war dance

War dance

A war dance is a dance involving mock combat, usually in reference to tribal warrior societies where such dances were performed as a ritual connected with endemic warfare....

 parade on a path that passed in front of the hotel. In 1835, a Mr. Davis assumed control of the hotel, which subsequently had a series of proprietors. The building briefly served as Chicago's first theater, and hosted the first Chicago Theatre company in November 1837 in an abandoned dining room. By 1839, it returned to service as a hotel, but was destroyed by fire in 1851, and subsequently torn down. The Wigwam

Wigwam (Chicago)

The Wigwam was a convention center and meeting hall that served as the site of the 1860 Republican National Convention. It was located in Chicago, Illinois at Lake Street and Market near the Chicago River. This site had previously been the site of the Sauganash Hotel, Chicago's first hotel...

 was built in its place nine years later.

Honoree

Billy Caldwell "Sauganash", who served as an interpreter for the Indian Agents, was the honoree of the hotel. Born in approximately 1780, "Sauganash" was an Indian half-breed

Half-breed

Half-breed is an historic term used to describe anyone who is mixed Native American and white European parentage...

, whose father was Colonel Caldwell

William Caldwell (ranger)

William Caldwell , was a Scots-Irish immigrant to North America who became a soldier with the British Indian Department, . He fought against the American rebels in the American Revolutionary War, especially with Butler's Rangers, based near upstate New York...

, an Irish officer in the British Army

British Army

The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

 stationed at Detroit; his mother was a Pottawatomi. He was schooled at a Jesuit school in Detroit, where he learned English and French. Caldwell learned several Indian dialect

Dialect

The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...

s. Billy Caldwell's Indian Name was "Straight Tree", but he was known by "Sauganash", meaning Englishman in the Potawatomi language

Potawatomi language

Potawatomi is a Central Algonquian language and is spoken around the Great Lakes in Michigan and Wisconsin, as well as in Kansas in the United States, and in southern Ontario in Canada, 1300 Potawatomi people, all elderly...

. As a warrior, Sauganash was under the influence of Tecumseh

Tecumseh

Tecumseh was a Native American leader of the Shawnee and a large tribal confederacy which opposed the United States during Tecumseh's War and the War of 1812...

 until his death and he became a Captain in the British Indian Department.

Theater

In 1834 (three years before Chicago incorporated as a city), the hotel hosted the first professional public performance in Chicago at a cost of $.50 ($ today) for adults and $.25 for children. The show promised a wide variety of talents including ventriloquism

Ventriloquism

Ventriloquism, or ventriloquy, is an act of stagecraft in which a person manipulates his or her voice so that it appears that the voice is coming from elsewhere, usually a puppeteered "dummy"...

. In the following two years, several traveling showmen performed at the hotel. In 1837, the Chicago Theater, which was the first local theater company, set up shop in the hotel's abandoned dining room. Co-managers Harry Isherwood and Alexander McKinzie procured an amusement license for the company from the city council, and it began performing a different billed show every night starting in late October or early November for approximately six weeks. The plays included titles The Idiot Witness, The Stranger, and The Carpenter of Rouen. Production of The Stranger took place in the dining room

Dining room

A dining room is a room for consuming food. In modern times it is usually adjacent to the kitchen for convenience in serving, although in medieval times it was often on an entirely different floor level...

of the hotel. Following a six week engagement, the company went on tour until the following spring, when it returned to a different local venue.