Pike House

City: Bloomington

County: McLean

State: Illinois

Harrison W. Pike opened the Pike House in downtown Bloomington, Illinois in June 1854. Constructed out of wood for roughly $25,000, it was the first hotel in Illinois west of Chicago. It was Abraham Lincoln's preferred hotel in Bloomington, and he delivered a speech from its balcony in 1856.

Jacob L. Hasbrouck, History of McLean County Illinois (Topeka-Indianapolis: Historical, 1924), 2:946; J. H. Burnham, History of Bloomington and Normal in McLean County, Illinois (Bloomington: J. H. Burnham, 1879), 22; Harry E. Pratt, “Abraham Lincoln in Bloomington, Illinois,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 29 (April 1936), 42, 54-55; Gary Ecelbarger, The Great Comeback: How Abraham Lincoln Beat the Odds to Win the 1860 Republican Nomination (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2008), 35; Summary of Remarks at Bloomington, Illinois.