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Merchants Hotel (a.k.a.
City Hotel in the 1880's)
SE Corner of
16th (Walker) & Front Streets
Located in the parking lot area of the Enterprise publishing building.
The hotel was listed in the 1886 and 1889
Sanborn maps as the City Hotel. The
building was either rebuilt or the north port was expanded sometime between
those years. The 1997, 1902 and 1909
Sanborn maps note the hotel named the Merchants
Hotel. The building must have been removed before the 1928 maps were issued.
The hotel originally was a square building with 4
upper story windows on the west side and 7 upper story windows on the north
side. Later (somewhere between the 1890's and 1910's) the south part of
the building was added. By the 1950's the north part of the building was
removed leaving only the south part -- which was used as the Blair Hatchery.
According to the 1890-1891 Business Directory and
Farmer List Published in the Nebraska State Gazetteer, Gutshow Joseph,
prop Merchants Hotel [source]
Major J.F. Cheney
senior proprietor of the Merchants and Depot Hotels at Sioux
City, Ia., also of a Hotel at Blair, Neb., and the Union Hotel at
Missouri Valley, was born in Grafton county, N.H. In 1861 he enlisted in the 1st
Ill. Light Art. as a private, was soon promoted to first lieutenant, then to
captain, then to major and when discharged at the close of the war was
lieutenant colonel. He then opened the Nachusa house at Dixon, Ill., also a
summer resort at Spring Lake, Mich., called the Spring Lake house. He moved to
Sioux City and opened the Merchants Hotel, in 1880, and his other hotel soon
after. Major C. is one of the oldest hotel men in the country, and all of his
hotels will be found to be first class.
http://freepages.books.rootsweb.com/~cooverfamily/western_42.html
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Hotel Registry
 A hotel register for the Merchants Hotel is
available at the Washington County Museum Library.
April 28, 1895 to September 11, 1896.
Loaned by E. N. Bowles.
Joseph Gutschow, Proprietor
The first page (Sunday, April 28, 1895) records the signature of a John I. Blair
from Chicago as one of the guests.
(view page
| Original Page)
Registry also includes a blotter page with
advertisements for local businesses. (view
page) |
