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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