Portland Hotel

The Portland Hotel (or Hotel Portland) was a hotel in Portland, Oregon, United States that formerly occupied the city block that is now the site of Pioneer Courthouse Square.cite web |last= Flores |first= Trudy |coauthors= Sarah Griffith |url= http://www.ohs.org/education/oregonhistory/historical_records/dspDocument.cfm?doc_ID=000842FC-4042-1E6E-891B80B0527200A7 |title= Portland Hotel, 1890 |publisher= Oregon Historical Society |date= 2002 |accessdate= 2008-05-15]

History

The building was designed by William M. Whidden, later of the prominent Portland architectural firm Whidden & Lewis, and Charles Follen McKim of McKim, Mead, & White.cite web |url= http://kimfitzgerald.net/Failing_Bldg/Failing_Building_NR_Nomination.pdf |title= National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Failing Building |publisher= kimfitzgerald.net |accessdate= 2008-05-15]

Railroad magnate Henry Villard financed the Portland Hotel and construction began in 1882,cite web |last= King |first= Bart |url= http://www.bartking.net/bartking/postcardshome.html |title= Portland Postcards! (author of "An Architectural Guidebook to Portland", site includes several vintage postcard images of Portland hotels)] but his finances collapsed—in part because of the Panic of 1884—and the construction stopped for five years.cite web |url= http://www.pdx.edu/usp/pioneer_square.html |title= Planning in Portland, Oregon: History of Planning: Pioneer Courthouse Square |publisher= Nohan A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University |date= 1986 |first= Gregg |last= Kantor |accessdate= 2008-05-15] cite book |url= http://books.google.com/books?id=oDoqppcTG4sC&pg=PA105&lpg=PA105&dq=villard+1884+financial+OR+finances+panic&source=web&ots=MtJ-os0uiY&sig=rZuoi7MlKYGpN1VdZdfjNlGrau8&hl=en |title= Separating Fools from Their Money: a History of American Financial Scandals |last= McDonald |first=Scott B. |coauthors= Jane E. Hughes |date= 2006 |isbn= 0765803569 |accessdate= 2008-05-15 |publisher= Transaction Publishers (via Google Books)] With only the foundation completed, the site became known as "Villard's Ruins" and the bodies of two murder victims were found there before construction resumed. George B. Markle, Jr. began a campaign to raise local money to complete the hotel. He generated enough interest and subscribers to his plan, among them Henry W. Corbett, Henry Failing, Simeon Reed and William S. Ladd, to get construction started again.Gaston, Joseph. (1911). [http://books.google.com/books?id=v0gOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA677&lpg=PA677&dq=%22charles+b+bellinger%22+oregon+judge&source=web&ots=ChZHVGeqUb&sig=HFvTZ7fhUNk0nob5ENUfRPmDGuQ#PPA675,M1 "Portland, Oregon, Its History and Builders".] Chicago: S.J. Clarke Pub. Co. (via Google Books) pp. 517-20.] cite web |url= http://www.pioneercourthousesquare.org/history.htm |title= Pioneer Courthouse Square History |publisher= pioneercourthousesquare.org |accessdate= 2008-05-15] Later investors included labor leader Ed Boyce.

The Queen Anne, Châteauesque hotel finally opened in 1890 and had eight floors and 326 bedrooms.cite web |url= http://www.pdxhistory.com/html/hotel_portland.html |title= Hotel Portland |publisher= pdxhistory.com |accessdate= 2008-05-15 (includes many historic exterior and interior images)] It had cost well over a million dollars and eight years to complete. Portland Hotel stood between Southwest Morrison and Yamhill, on Sixth Street, facing the Pioneer Courthouse. Purchased in 1944 by Julius Meier and Aaron Frank, the deteriorating structure was demolished in 1951 and replaced by a parking structure for the Meier & Frank Building. When Pioneer Square was built on the site in 1984, the iron scrollwork gate of the hotel was incorporated into the design. Much of the hotel's original stone foundation remains under the square's sidewalks.

Eleven U.S. presidents stayed at the Hotel Portland—each time, a new set of Haviland China was purchased for the occasion.

A. E. Doyle was approached about designing an addition to the hotel, but this never got past the planning stages. [cite book |first= Lena |last= Lenceck |coauthors= Gideon Bosker |title= Frozen Music, a History of Portland Architecture |publisher= Oregon Historical Society |date= 1985 |isbn= 0875951643]

References

External links

* [http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~usgenweb/or/multnomah/postcards/porhot.jpgColored postcard with picture of hotel]