single rare highly collectible stereoscopic card featuring the badly damaged sherman house hotel during the great chicago fire in 1871. the scene shows the rubble of the structure stretching back toward several damaged but still standing walls. a sign in the distance reads "the sherman house will be rebuilt immediately". the image was taken by famous post-fire chicago photographers copelin & hine, who along with others, documented the fire's aftermath in great detail throughout the "burnt district." the "views of the ruins of chicago" stereoview (and likely several others pertaining to the aftermath of the fire) were printed and distributed by j. a. stoddard, 248 fulton street, chicago, il. the applied albumen photographic prints are in great condition, with little surface wear except for one tear to the right-hand image. the heavy orange cardstock with rounded edges remains in great shape, considering age. the hotel sherman was one of the city's premier hotels and a leading night-life venue during much of the early twentieth century. it was built in 1837, when francis c. sherman, a three-time mayor of chicago and father of the legendary civil war general, opened the city hotel on the north side of randolph street between clark and lasalle. the hotel, renamed the sherman house in 1844, measured a mere 18 by 84 feet. the sherman house endured many changes over the years, not least of which was the great fire of 1871, when the hotel burned to the ground alongside the rest of downtown. apparently undaunted by the fire, francis sherman reestablished his business immediately by taking over another hotel just outside the burnt district, on madison street a block west of the river. he meanwhile hired boyington to build a new sherman house on the corner of clark and randolph, and it was completed in 1873. the new structure was larger and more elaborately decorated than its predecessor. by the turn of the century, however, the sherman house began to lose its luster and popularity. gradually, it gained the reputation as the "deadest hotel" in town. not until the hotel was acquired by entrepreneur joseph beifeld was its decline reversed. beifeld, a jewish hungarian immigrant, dramatically improved the hotel's image with the help of first-class customer service and top-flight entertainment in the evenings. by 1904, the new and improved hotel sherman and its famed restaurant, the college inn, were the talk of the town, increasingly frequented by local celebrities and members of high society. buoyed by the turnaround, beifeld invested several million dollars in new construction at the hotel. in 1911, the main hotel structure was rebuilt, followed by an additional $7 million, twenty-three-story expansion in 1925. by the end of the 1920s, the hotel sherman contained 1600 guest rooms, a banquet hall seating 2500, and stunning new marble lobby. local newspapers reported that the new facilities made the sherman the largest hotel west of new york city. incidentally, soon after his purchase of the sherman, beifeld joined two other entertainment entrepreneurs, aaron jones and paul howse, in another major entertainment venture. with beifeld's significant financial assistance, jones and howse proceeded with their plans to open the midwest's largest amusement park, named white city, on chicago's south side. beifeld served as president of the amusement park, which received its first guests in the summer of 1905. the hotel sherman remained one of chicago's premier night spots through the 1910s and 1920s, attracting celebrities, tourists, and members of high society. it was during this period that the college inn restaurant, with the help of band leader isham jones, became a notable jazz venue. jones broke with the genteel tradition of violin-based hotel performance when he replaced many of his orchestra's waltz-oriented numbers with new, jazz-inspired tunes. though there were critics of the change, most of the restaurant's patrons applauded the livelier arrangements and the freer dance styles they encouraged. though the tunes played by isham jones and his all-white jazz orchestra were tame in comparison to those heard in the racially mixed cabarets of the south side, they nonetheless gave many white chicagoans their first taste of jazz. since 1985 the entire block formed by clark, randolph, lasalle, and lake streets has been the site of the james r. thompson (state of illinois) center, which was designed by helmut jahn.