Background
James J. Egan was born in 1839 in Cork, Ireland.
James J. Egan was born in 1839 in Cork, Ireland.
With an ambition to become an architect he started training in the office of Clinton & Russell, later worked for the elder Mr. Potter, James Duckworth and Richard Upjohn, all noted specialists in church design. In 1871 Mr. Egan moved to Chicago where he established himself in practice, and in the period following the great fire was active in reconstruction work, executing a number of large commissions which brought him professional recognition. His most important early work was the Criminal Court Building and City Jail, both long since replaced by other buildings, and later he won the competition for the new Court House. During the erection of the latter building, however, many difficulties were encountered and the work dragged on over a period of years.
In 1876 Mr. Egan took Henry W. Hill, a former draftsman in his employ, into partnership, and continued that association five years, subsequently carried on his work alone until 1897, when the firm, Egan & Prindeville, was established. Becoming known early in his career as a church architect, Mr. Egan received many commissions to design ecclesiastical buildings for the Catholic diocese in Chicago, notable examples of which were St. John's Church, at 18th and Clark Streets, designed in elaborate "modern” Gothic; St. Elizabeth's Church; St. Vincent's College (considered one of Mr. Egan’s outstanding buildings), and in San Francisco St. Mary's Church, at Van Ness and O'Farrell Streets was built from his plans. That structure, dedicated in 1877 survived the 1906 earthquake. The interior was damaged by fire but later restored. Among other works of Egan & Prindeville were Mount Carmel Church: St. Agatha’s; Church of the Holy Angels- St. Martin's (built before 1900; St. Xavier's Academy for the Sisters of Mercy in Chicago, and St. Paul's Cathedral at Pittsburgh.
While Mr. Egan's major works were ecclesiastical in character, he did not confine himself to that one field of design. A number of hotels were planned by him, of which the most important were the Breevort in Chicago. Hotel Ryan in St. Paul, and the Spaulding Hotel at Duluth, Minn.