About the speaker:

Bud Hopkins, AIA, the great-great-grandnephew of John Mills Van Osdel, Chicago’s first architect. Genealogist, author, and retired architect, Bud has written a book on his ancestor.
Born and raised in the Midwest, Bud Hopkins has lived in the Dallas, Texas, area for sixty years. He received his BArch from the University of Oklahoma and has an MArch from Columbia University.

About John Mills Van Osdel:

Van Osdel was born in Baltimore and came to Chicago in 1837. He designed every type of structure needed in the rapidly growing city, from houses to hotels, grain elevators to City Hall, bridges to pumping stations. He was an abolitionist before the Civil War and served on the City Council after the Great Fire of 1871, drafting a building code, one of the first of its kind. Van Osdel was the architect of Church of the Holy Family (1860) at 1080 West Roosevelt Road, adjacent to St. Ignatius College Prep.