Opposite the Court House on Randolph Street is the Sherman House hotel, one of the most impressive buildings erected in the city of Chicago's early years. The original three-story Sherman House, built in 1836-37, was called the City Hotel. In 1844 Francis C. Sherman, who served two terms as Chicago’s mayor in the early 1860s, added two stories and changed the name to the Sherman House. This building was torn down in 1861 and replaced with a six-story luxury hotel, faced with limestone from the quarries southwest of the city. The new Sherman House was one of several leading Chicago luxury hotels that was lost to the fire. The State of Illinois's James R. Thompson Center now occupies the block north of where the Courthouse stood.
