What is considered the first skyscraper built with a steel frame?

The Home Insurance Building is considered the first skyscraper built with a steel-frame structural system.

Designed by William Le Baron Jenney, the Chicago building was completed in 1885 with 10 stories and originally stood about 138 feet tall. Its metal skeleton carried much of the building’s floors and exterior masonry, reducing the need for thick load-bearing walls.

The description is slightly simplified: the structure used both wrought iron and steel, along with masonry and reinforced concrete. Earlier buildings had used iron framing, and some historians debate which structure deserves the title “first skyscraper.” Nevertheless, the Home Insurance Building is the standard quiz and textbook answer because it most clearly established the modern skeleton-frame skyscraper.

Two additional stories were added in 1891, bringing it to 12 floors and roughly 180 feet. The building was demolished in 1931, but its engineering approach transformed Chicago’s skyline and influenced skyscraper construction worldwide.