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| 1929 letter describes early hotels (Part 1) |
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| EDITORS NOTE: This is the first in a two-part news story on early hotels in Harrison. The second installment will be published next Friday. |
| While searching through some files, I happened to discover an article written by Lulu V. Scott dated September 1929. Her reminiscences of early hotels coincided with the grand opening of the Seville Hotel that year, so I wanted to share with you her story of early hotels. |
| "The introduction of Harrison to a hotel of the truly metropolitan class in the opening of Hotel Seville calls vividly to mind some of the hotels that have served us in the past about which clings pleasant memories. Many of our former hotel men have helped in building a foundation for our present splendid little city. |
| "According to my father, the late George J. Crump, the first hotel ever operated in Harrison was owned and maintained by J. O. Nicholson. The house still stands on a site due west of the old Stiffler spring on South Spring Street. It was known as the Nicholson House. A house just north of it was used during the Reconstruction days as a courthouse. This building has long since disappeared. |
| "The first hotel of which I have any recollection was conducted by Mrs. George Cotton, mother of our townsman George Cotton. It was, if memory serves me right, in the Nicholson building. Later, it was moved to the site where the county jail now stands. |
| "Central Avenue was then the leading residential street of the town. The channel of Crooked Creek was then considerably further south, and the menace of overflows had not at that time developed. The spring which has disappeared now was a popular watering place. It was from this spring that Harrison was first known as Stiffler Springs. It was overhung with luxuriant forest trees and was a very inviting place for the tired and thirsty travelers, as well as a popular meeting place for the town's people. |
| "On the corner now occupied by the Newton Produce Company, Dr. Curd, father of Mrs. George Cotton, had a commodious two-story home. Adjoining it on the north was the home of Captain Pace. Next was the Cotton Hotel. |
| "After the Cottons moved to their farm, Harrison was without a hotel, travelers being accorded of the homes of various businessmen. Later Captain Fick, answering a pressing need, opened his large home on the site of the Pierce-Bonsteel Lumber Company. With its large yard of shady trees and well-cared for shrubbery, it was a stopping place not to be ashamed of in those days. |
| "It was the latter 1880s that Harrison began to assert itself strongly as a central business point, and seeing the further need for hotel facilities, W. S. Allen built the present Ozark Hotel, christening it in honor of his friend, the then governor of the state - the Eagle House. |
| "It was along about this same period that John D. Tyson, William Clemishire, and W. F. Gordon built the brick block now occupied by Keener's store, the Lyric Theater, Charley's Sandwich Shoppe, the Little Gift Shop and Riley's Café. In the theater building was opened the Arcade Hotel with room extending out into the upper stories of adjoining buildings. It was the first hotel to institute 'individual' service here. It lasted but a few years, the Eagle House having gained the most popular favor. After the Allens sold the Eagle, it had a series of names being known as the Arcade, the park, and later the Ozark. |
| This column appears Fridays in the Harrison Daily Times. Mail questions to Boone County Heritage Museum, P. O. Box 1094, Harrison, AR 72601. Marilyn Smith can be contacted at bchm@windstream.net |
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