The original San Francisco City Hall (shown here) was completed in 1897. It took seven lead architects, 27 years and $6 million to build – that would be around $227 million today. Just nine years later, it was destroyed in the deadly 1906 earthquake, which killed over 3,000 people and left more than 80% of the city in ruins. An architect's report following this expensive disaster found the building had been designed "without any of the principles of the steel frame construction having been used."

The city eventually built a new City Hall (also shown here) just two city blocks away, with construction started in 1913, and completed in 1916. This new building as a whole contains 7,900 tons (7,035 metric tons) of structural steel. It cost $3.4 million to build – that would be around $98 million today.