use of this revolutionary system was for the Montauk Building in 1882. He later transferred use of the steel frame to the vertical load-bearing walls in the Phenix Building of 1887, in imitation of William LeBaron Jenney's Home Insurance Building of 1885. Root, Burnham, Dankmar Adler, and Louis Sullivan formed the Western Association of Architects because they felt slighted by East Coast architects. Root served as president in 1886. In 1887, he was elected a director of the national American Institute of Architects. His work from his prime years has been recognized for significance by being designated as National Historic Landmark, National Register of Historic Places, and Chicago landmarks. He worked on the plan for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Before it was constructed, Root died of pneumonia in 1891 at the age of 41. He was buried in Uptown's Graceland Cemetery. Marriage and family Root married Mary Louise Walker in 1879, but she died of tuberculosis six weeks later. In 1882, he married for a second time, to Dora Louise Monroe (sister of Harriet Monroe). Their son John Wellborn Root, Jr. also practiced in Chicago as an architect. Root's sister-in-law, Harriet Monroe, authored the biography, John Wellborn Root: A Study of His Life and Work (1896). Significant buildings Grannis Block (1880) Chicago (destroyed) St. Gabriel's Church (1880) Chicago Montauk Building (1882–1883) Chicago (destroyed) Rookery Building (1885) Chicago, National Historic Landmark (NHL) Phoenix (Phenix) Building (1887) Chicago (destroyed) Lake View Presbyterian Church (1888) Chicago Monadnock Building (1889), Chicago, National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) Society for Savings Building, Cleveland, (1889), NRHP Reliance Building (1889) Chicago, ground floor only, NHL Keokuk Union Depot (1891) Keokuk, Iowa, NRHP Temperance Temple (1892) Chicago (destroyed) References External links 19th-century American architects Chicago school architects Architects from Chicago Architects from Atlanta 1850 births 1891 deaths Burials at Graceland Cemetery (Chicago) Deaths from pneumonia in Illinois People from Lumpkin, Georgia Western Association of Architects Fellows of the American Institute of Architects Recipients of the AIA Gold Medal