Here are four postcards of the West Hotel in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The first two are circa 1916. The first card has the following description on the back:
WEST HOTEL, Minneapolis, Fifth Street and Hennepin Avenue — One of the many magnificent and up-to-date hotels to be found in Minneapolis. At one time this hotel was considered the finest hotel west of Chicago.The second postcard shows the lobby of the West Hotel, "Largest in U. S."
The next two postcards are from the 1930s. The backs describe the hotel as "The Most Famous Hotel in the Northwest. Completely Redecorated and Refurnished." One has a map of the Midwest showing the Main Routes to Minneapolis, along with interior and exterior views of the hotel. This card was published in 1931.
The last card advertises "50 Years of Continuous Service." West Hotel was opened in 1884. This postcard was published in 1935 and mailed in 1936. The hotel went through a period of decline and was demolished in 1940.
The following information is from Wikipedia:
The West Hotel was Minneapolis's first grand hotel. It had 407 luxuriously furnished rooms, 140 baths, and featured an immense and opulent lobby which was claimed to be the largest in the nation. These elements combined to make what was considered for a time to be the most luxurious hotel west of Chicago. The West was designed by LeRoy Buffington and built on land that was once owned by the first resident of Minneapolis, John H. Stevens. Buffington created the West in the Queen Anne style that was quite popular in the last decades of the 19th century.
The Queen Anne style featured an elaborate architectural look that included gable roofs, projecting bay windows, towers, and dormer windows. The West combined most of these concepts into a grand, larger than life look that seems graceless to some modern observers but was a popular building style at the time, a style that was introduced in 1876 at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.
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The description of the architecture is interesting and helped me focus on various details that I probably didn't pay much attention to on first glance. The lobby has a timelessness about it.
ReplyDeleteI’m beginning to think I will have to broaden my area of postcard collecting three are some fascinating cards out there as this set proves.
ReplyDeleteClearly there are or at least were a lot of grand hotels in the States. If I ever stay in another one, I'll be sure to get a postcard!
ReplyDeleteHotels used to always have postcards. You would probably not find any today.
DeleteThis is very true. I always look and never find any these days.
DeleteIt seems so sad when an old building is demolished to make way for a new modern structure - which I assume is what happened to the West Hotel. I wonder what took its place? Even the coliseum in Rome was partially demolished when stones and masonry were taken from it to build churches and other more modern structures before preservationists were finally able to stop the practice.
ReplyDeleteAmong other things, it didn't have enough bathrooms. When it was demolished, the site became a parking lot.
DeleteGoogle Streetview
My link didn't work, but Google streeetview of 5th & Hennepin does have an image.
DeleteThe link worked the second time I tried it.
DeleteThat's a handsome grand hotel that's a perfect match for this weekend's theme. Hotels used to be an important social and business center for locals as well as travelers, and during the age of rail, everyone stayed downtown near the train station. Now hotels like the West are parking lots. Is that really progress?
ReplyDeleteIt looks such a fascinating building inside and out, that I would loved to have visited it. It showed so much character, unlike the soulless architecture we see nowadays.
ReplyDeleteFamily History Fun
So much time, energy, resources and, of course, money spent on those grand old buildings, and so few of them left today. Styles and fashions change, yes, but why can't we repurpose more of these old buildings, rather than bowling them and creating something esle that will only survive a few decades? What a waste.
ReplyDeleteSplendid place, I daresay, but 407 rooms, and 140 baths????
ReplyDeleteNot so sure I like the idea......
I remember, as a kid,
we share a bathroom with the room next door.
Didn't like it.
I like the substantial feel of that old building --- should have lasted for a long time, tho retrofitting an adequate number of bathrooms would have been a challenge. And it also reminds me a bit of the old Browns Hotel in Denver -- doesn't have the same architecture, but the feeling of being substantial is there.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I have a modern bone in my body. I love those old hotels. Just look at that lobby. And I too remember the shared bathrooms at these old hotels.
ReplyDelete