Wainwright Building

A National Historic Landmark. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1968.

From the record

“The Wainwright Building is a 10-story, 135-foot (41 m) terra cotta office building at 709 Chestnut Street in Downtown St. The Wainwright Building is considered to be one of the first aesthetically fully expressed early skyscrapers.”
Wikipedia article Wainwright Building, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 663 National Register listings published here for St. Louis County · listed in 1968 · category: Building · a National Historic Landmark.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

National Historic Landmark. The highest federal designation, held by about 2,600 places in the country against roughly 100,000 Register listings.
What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
Address. 709 Chestnut St., St. Louis (Independent City), 63101
When was it listed? May 1968
Category. building
Architectural style. Chicago School
Architect. Adler & Sullivan
National Register reference number. 68000054 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

2 since 2006

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 2 fires within 5 miles of Wainwright Building between 2006 and 2011, burning about 1 acre in total. None started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
17 December 2011	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Illinois Division of Forestry Resources	79TH
9 October 2006	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Missouri State Fire Marshal's Office	not named

Every fire recorded in St. Louis County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 68 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 68 workings within 5 miles of Wainwright Building: 63 past producers, 2 plants, 2 producers, 1 prospect. 4 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Clay, Fire Clay (Refractory), Fire Clay (Refractory), Coal. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
(Facility) Sauget Zinc Refinery	Zinc, Refiner, Sulfur, Sulfuric Acid	Plant
Bambrick-Bates Constr. Co. Quarry 1	Clay, Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
Hypothetical Lead Mine	Lead, Silver, Zinc, Cobalt, Copper, Nickel, Cadmium	Prospect	Underground
Madison Plant	Thorium	Producer
Pfizer Inc. Mineral Pigments	Iron	Producer
Parker-Russell Fireclay Mine	Fire Clay (Refractory), Coal	Past Producer
Tole and Thorp Fireclay Mine	Fire Clay (Refractory), Coal	Past Producer
Guelker Mine Number Four	Clay	Past Producer
Hydraulic Press Brick Co Mine No 3	Fire Clay (Refractory)	Past Producer
Hydraulic Press Brick Co Mine No 4	Clay	Past Producer

Every working recorded in St. Louis County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Lincoln Trust Building	under 500 feet	1982
General American Life Insurance Company National Headquarters	under 500 feet	2008
Union Trust Company Building	0.1 miles	1982
Chemical Building	0.1 miles	1982
Maryland Hotel	0.1 miles	1996
U.S. Customhouse and Post Office	0.1 miles	1968

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 68000054 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
St. Louis County	All 663 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.