James Patrick Tracy was a Chicago contractor and builder by trade. He would build the steeple for Holy Family Church which is located at 1080 West Roosevelt Road after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. It would be one of Tracy's greatest building achievements and he would himself place the cross in position onto of the steeple which still stands today. James Tracy went out west to Atchison, Kansas and helped build the small rural town into a city for the railroad industry during the early 1880s. The Tracy family relocated back to Chicago, Illinois by 1889. This then is the narrative of the life and times of James Patrick Tracy.