The Martin Hotel: Chicago School on the Missouri

In nineteen twelve, a hotel went up in downtown Sioux City, and it was a textbook example of the Chicago School style that Louis Sullivan had pioneered and that Frank Lloyd Wright would make world famous. The building's strong vertical lines, ornamental terra cotta, and commercial clarity made it one of the finest pieces of architecture in the city. The Martins' hotel ran a ballroom, a restaurant, a cafeteria, and a cigar stand, and from nineteen fifteen to nineteen fifty-six it was owned by Eugene Eppley, the hotel magnate who ran some of the most prestigious properties across the Midwest.

The hotel became the Sheraton-Martin before it was later converted to apartments in the nineteen eighties. It sits on the National Register of Historic Places today, now called Martin Tower.