Chicago Board of Trade - 1930

Copyright 2005 David R. Phillps

The Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), established in 1848, is the world's oldest futures and options exchange. More than 50 different options and futures contracts are traded by over 3,600 CBOT members through open outcry and eTrading. Volumes at the exchange in 2003 were a record breaking 454 million contracts. On 12 July 2007, the CBOT merged with the CME under the CME Group holding company and ceased to exist as an independent entity.

The concerns of U.S. merchants to ensure that there were buyers and sellers for commodities have resulted into forward contracts to sell and buy commodities. Still, credit risk remained a serious problem. The CBOT took shape to provide a centralized location, where buyers and sellers can meet to negotiate and formalize forward contracts.

In 1864, the CBOT listed the first ever standardized "exchange traded" forward contracts, which were called futures contracts. In 1919, the Chicago Butter and Egg Board, a spin-off of the CBOT, was reorganized to enable member traders to allow future trading, and its name was changed to Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME).

In 2007, the CBOT and the CME merged to form the CME Group.

Since 1930, the Chicago Board of Trade has been operating out of 141 West Jackson Boulevard, Chicago. It is housed in a building designed by architects Holabird & Root that is 605 feet tall, the tallest in Chicago until the Richard J. Daley Center superseded it in 1965. This Art Deco building incorporates sculptural work by Alvin Meyer and is capped by a 31 foot tall statue of the Roman goddess Ceres in reference to the exchange's heritage as a commodity market. Ceres is faceless because its sculptor, John Storrs, believed that the forty-five story building would be sufficiently taller than any other nearby structure and as a result that no one would be able to see the sculpture's face anyway.

On May 4, 1977, the Chicago Board of Trade Building was designated a Chicago Landmark. The building is now a National Historic Landmark. Today the Board of Trade Building is closely joined by numerous skyscrapers in the heart of Chicago's busy Loop commercial neighborhood.

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