The Hotel Marysville Story

A.B.C. Dohrmann, an officer of the Yosemite National Park, gave a speech to the residents of Marysville, California in March of 1922.

Twenty-five percent of the time, he told the audience, tourists talk about the places they have visited.  But seventy-five percent of the time, they talk about the hotels where they stayed.

This thought resonated with the audience and stoked the desire that had been building in the community.

Marysville had wanted a grand hotel for some time.  In June 1919, the Marysville Hotel Company (MHC) was formed with the intent of building a new hotel at the corner of Fifth and E Streets.  Cline Bull and H.H. Dunning, both of Marysville, were to fund the project and Roger Coit, R.C. Pellaton, and Charles Coit were on the board of directors.  That same month, MHC bought the home of Frank Potter and the adjacent old Rideout Hospital at the corner of 5th and E Streets in order to use those lots for the new hotel.  On June 29, 1919 demolition of the old Rideout Hospital began.

Over two years later, on November 8, 1921, broker R.R. Stephens asked Marysville citizens to purchase $130,000 in preferred stock in order to build the hotel, with a San Francisco capitalist supplying the balance for a total of $500,000.  The effort never materialized, however, and the MHC folded.

 At the start of 1922, the Yuba Chamber of Commerce hotel committee continued to support the idea and wanted to build a six story first class hotel in Marysville.  The committee was prepared to bring in experts to assist with the planning.  Initial estimates were that it would cost $400,000 to build the desired hotel.

What really pushed the effort to the point of solid action, however, was the building of the Virden Packing Plant in Marysville.  Charles E. Virden, President of Virden, came to the opening of the new plant in Marysville on July 15, 1922.

At that celebration, Charles Virden stated that he would put up $50,000 of the $400,000 needed to build a grand hotel in Marysville.

The hotel effort really took off at this point.  It was finally time to put the plan into action and build a world class hotel in Marysville.  By July 22, the Chamber of Commerce started planning a financial campaign to make the project possible and in August they met again with San Francisco financial expert Frederick D. Cloud.  Cloud then spoke at a Chamber of Commerce meeting with the public invited.

Papers began to run articles stating that the Marysville "tourist hotel" was about to become a reality.

 In late September 1922, papers were filed with the Secretary of State to form a new Marysville Hotel Company (MHC) with the charter as outlined to the right.  In early October, the board of directors was elected and the MHC opened an office in the Yuba County Chamber of Commerce.

The reorganized MHC continued to target the 62x112 foot location at Fifth and E Street for the hotel.  The businessmen who owned the land agreed to sell it to the new hotel company for about $30,000 - what they paid for it plus accrued interest and taxes.

The board studied a new hotel in Eureka that had been created using a similar method and found the city of Eureka was very pleased with the results so far.

The board then worked on finding reputable businessmen to lease the hotel.  Businessmen from San Francisco were shown around the area in mid-October.  A man from San Diego expressed interest in leasing the hotel.  By early December, the board decided to lease the hotel to Henry H. Nelson and L.M. Rossi of Santa Rosa for 15 years with an option to extend for another 5 years.

The next order of business was to select an architect for the building's exterior.

On January 10, 1923 the board was ready to reveal the hotel plans to the public and solicit the purchase of hotel stocks.

 On January 12th, the Marysville Hotel Company began selling 8,000 shares of stock in the hotel.  Purchasers weren't required to pay for the stock at the time of purchase - most bought a "subscription" which was a promise to pay the money once enough shares had been sold to make building the hotel a certainty.

The first day, $62,500 worth of stock was sold by noon.  News stories from the era do not mention if $50,000 of that was from Charles Virden, as he had promised in July 1922.  News stories did report that goal was to sell $200,000 to $250,000 worth of stock (the amount varied by newspaper) by February 27, 1923.

The citizens of Wheatland were so enthused with the effort that the Wheatland Chamber of Commerce and citizens volunteered to sell subscriptions themselves.

L.M. Rossi, the lessee, often came to town to assist with the sales.  He gave hotel details to entice buyers:  the hotel would be the best of its kind in the western United States and he would spend $50,000 to furnish it.  he explained that the hotel would have a device to refrigerate the hotel air and reduce temperatures throughout the hotel by 25 degrees during the summer - the only hotel in the west to have such a feature.

 When February 27th arrived, the drive was short by $23,000 according to the newspapers.  The purchase period was extended to March 7th.   Mr. Rossi came to town and promised that the hotel would not contain a laundry so as not to compete with the many laundries already existing in Marysville.  The subscription goal was met by March 7th, assuring the hotel would be built and authorizing the board of directors to secure a loan.  The Bank of Italy agreed to loan MHC up to $125,000.

 Architect W.C. Rowe and contractor P.A. Palmer, both of San Francisco, were hired to work with the lessee in designing the exterior of the hotel.  Learning from the frequent hotel fires in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the hotel was to be built of reinforced concrete to be virtually fireproof.

 By June 1923, MHC had hired architect Edward Glass of San Francisco to do the final hotel design.  He was to have the initial plans done by the end of the month in order to review them with stakeholders by the middle of July.  Glass showed them a six-story hotel, later revised to five stories, built of reinforced concrete with 131 rooms and eleven "sample rooms".  80% of the rooms would have attached bathrooms.  His plans included a $19,000 cooling system as an option, should sufficient funds be found.  MHC liked the plans and gave the go-ahead for more detailed design.

In August 1923,  the community started the process of naming the new hotel.  The Marysville Appeal newspaper received permission from the MHC board of directors to hold a naming contest.  A vote was held by the newspaper and the top voted name was to be given to the board as a possibility.  Librarians Mary Saber and Edna Hewitt were asked to research potential names that carried a historical significance.

The list shown here appeared in the newspaper and the citizens were asked to vote on their favorite name. Many of the names had local significance:

• Hotel Marshal Eureka was a nod to James Marshal who originally discovered gold in California. 
• Charles and Mary Covillaud where Donner Party survivors who settled in the town and the reason it was later renamed to Marysville. 
• Theodore Cordua and Michael Nye were prominent early Marysville citizens. 
• W.T. Ellis was a prominent Marysville citizen who insisted on a taller levee though it was strongly opposed by others in the community. 
• Stephen Field was a Marysville resident who later became Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
• John Q. Packard was the man who donated the funds to build the Marysville Library.
• Dos Rios referenced the two rivers that merge at Marysville
• The Buttes are a small mountain range just northwest of town.
• New Mecklinberg was the original name of the city that is now Marysville.
• Babe Ruth was a famous baseball player at the height of his career, but with no connection to Marysville.

Many people considered the word "hotel" to be too plain and thought "Inn" was more elegant.

There were many additional names that did not make the list for some reason.  Newspaperman Peter J. Delay suggested "Hotel Sicard" or "Twin Counties Hotel".  "Clingstone Inn" was suggested to highlight the peaches grown locally.  Mrs. Cornelia Weeden of 620 B Street suggested "Hotel Pershing", and Alfred Grant suggested "Yuba-Feather Tavern" since those rivers were so instrumental in building the city when larger boats could make the trek upriver.

The name "Marysville Hotel" was the top vote-getter, followed by "Mary Covillaud Inn".   Eventually the community began to converge on the name "Hotel Marysville" as it would instantly indicate where the hotel was located.  The feeling locally was that the name Grass Valley chose for their hotel,  the Bret Harte Inn, was not optimal in that it led to "inconvenience and loss".  Grass Valley took offense to this notion and declared the name Bret Harte Inn was the correct choice.

 On October 16th, architect Edward Glass gave the MHC board five complete sets of hotel plans and specifications.  By November 1923, the MHC board of directors requested payment for fifty percent of the subscriptions and planned to call in another 25% before construction started.

Changes to the design were made in January 1924 to keep the hotel cost at about $300,000 and discussions were held with the Bank of Italy to raise the loan amount to $150,000.  By May 29th, the total amount subscribed was $196,250 with $84,492 paid so far, and the Bank of Italy agreed to the new loan amount of $150,000.

There were delays in the signing of the final construction contract with low bidder I.C. Evans, and in late June 1924 architect Glass sued the MHC for his fee of $17,688 claiming the board had rejected all bids.  MHC claimed Glass had not yet completed the terms of his contract.  They settled out of court in August 1924 and the construction contract with I.C. Evans was finalized in September 1924 for $311,908.  The contract called for construction completion in 11 months.

 Construction began on October 11, 1925 when a steam shovel arrived onsite to dig the basement and engineer W.M. Meek ran electrical lines for the hotel.  On October 14th, Shasta Lumber delivered the first load of lumber to the site.  A sign valued at $1,500 was donated to the site to advertise the hotel as it was built - "Marysville's $400,000 Hotel Now Building" it read, with a picture of the hotel.  PG&E made arrangements for the sign to be lit at night.

The basement was built under part of the hotel, but not under where the stores on the ground floor would be located.  Over 2,000 bags of cement were used to construct the basement.  After the concrete for each floor of the hotel was poured, construction would pause to allow the concrete to cure before pouring the next floor.  Citizens watched the construction so closely that, when construction paused after pouring the fourth floor, a rumor was started that the hotel had run out of money and the fifth floor would not be constructed.  The Marysville Appeal put out a story squashing the rumor.  The article pointed out that Rossi held applications for three times the number of commercial tenants he could use for the first floor of the Hotel Marysville.

In their continued effort to ensure all subscription moneys were collected, the MHC began suing subscribers who refused to pay.  MHC sued A.G. Powell for $450,  O.C. Power for $1,800, and the Yuba River Power Company for $7,500.

At some point prior to construction,  H.H. Nelson requested that L.M. Rossi release him from the lease of the Hotel Marysville.  The matter ended up in court but Rossi and Nelson were able to reach an out-of-court settlement in September1925 when Rossi bought Nelson's interest in the lease.  Rossi then brought in Charles B. Hamilton as a lease partner later in September.  Hamilton was president of hotels in Bakersfield, Fresno, Needles, Richmond, Riverside, Tracy and other places.  Hamilton was also a former Colorado state senator from Denver.

In December 1925, the MHC board of directors made it official:  the name of the hotel would be the "Hotel Marysville".  It was also made public that negotiations would start soon for the seven businesses that would reside on the first floor of the hotel.  Preference would be given to florists, barbers, beauty specialists, and drug stores.

 In January 1926, Rossi and Hamilton began advertising that the Hotel Marysville would open on March 1, 1926.

The Pacific Highway Association (PHA) began advertising "The Road of a Thousand Grandeurs" that ran from Vancouver, B.C. to Tijuana, Mexico - "the longest paved road in the world".  This road ran through Sacramento and Marysville, and the PHA noted that Marysville was taking a prominent place on the Pacific Highway with its fine automobile park and new Hotel Marysville.  The PHA estimated that in 1925 over 250,000 automobiles from other states and Canada would pass through California with 3.2 persons per car, for a total of 800,000 people.  PHA estimated that each car would spend $10 per day and travel for 70 days, meaning $175,000,000 spent mainly in Southern California.

Furniture began arriving at the Hotel Marysville in late February 1926 with the kitchen equipment and office furniture arriving shortly after that.

 D.L. Thomas, a delegate from the Plasterers Union Local 194 in Pasadena, was the first guest to register and stay at the Hotel Marysville on Saturday, March 13, 1926.   He was in town to attend the state buildings trades council meeting.  The dining room was not ready as it opened on April 1st.

On Friday April 9th,  Charles B. Hamilton and Louis M. Rossi hosted a group at the hotel including city and county officials, MHC directors, hotel men and their spouses.

On Saturday April 10th, 1926 a dinner and dance was held for the Grand Opening of the hotel with 465 in attendance.  Over 100 people had to be turned away due to lack of space.

 The Hotel Marysville became a very popular spot during 1926.  The newspapers were filled with descriptions of luncheons, dinner parties, pre-wedding dinner parties, dances and other events held at the Hotel Marysville.  The area was understandably proud of the hotel billed as the finest hotel in the west.  The hotel kept a large bowl of peaches in the lobby with a sign that stated "Help Yourself" - it was such a hit that other businesses in the area began doing the same thing.  Dinner dances were typically scheduled to go from 8 PM to 1 AM and cost about $2.50 per person.

Slowly, businesses began opening on the first floor.  On April 10, the women's clothing store Kuhlke's Millinery opened and was owned by Maude Kuhlke.  Ruth Fortna opened the Fortna Pharmacy on May 20th, complete with a Frigidaire Soda Fountain and Wilson and Pig'n Whistle candy.  Unfortunately on May 27th at 2:30 AM,  Fortna was driving north on I Street when a vehicle driven by M.C. Viera was traveling west on Fifth Street and struck Fortna's car, pushing it into a power pole.  She was pushed against the steering wheel so hard it broke the steering wheel and she suffered a crushed chest, 3 fractured ribs and other injuries.   A year later, she sold the pharmacy and married a Mr. McPhail from Los Angeles.

The McKenney-Maseman gift shop opened in the Hotel Marysville in December 1926 and carried items such as mirrors, lamps, light furniture, figurines, pillows, scarfs, playing cards, artificial flowers, and glassware.  By 1927, the Hotel Marysville included a barber shop and stenographer.

On July 13, 1926 the Marysville Hotel Company filed a protest with the board of supervisors stating that the $144,000 building assessment was in excess of other similar improvements in the city.  The board agreed to reduce the assessment which led to an objection by Supervisor W.T. Ellis.  This started a feud between Supervisor Ellis and Marysville Mayor John W. Watson with each accusing the other of interference.

 Good times lasted just three years.

In October 1929, the stock market crashed and sent the United States into the Great Depression.  Unemployment skyrocketed and money became scarce - not good news for the hotel industry.

On Sunday night June 18, 1933 things became even worse for the Hotel Marysville: the fifth floor of the hotel caught fire.  Within 20 minutes the fire department had hoses dousing the flames.  After another 30 minutes, Fire Chief William Reilly asked for assistance from the Yuba City Fire Department.  36 guest rooms on the fifth floor were totally destroyed as was the roof.  The ground floor and guest floors 2-4 were soaked with water and the basement flooded.

Fifth floor resident guests were now homeless including Mr. and Mrs. Cline Bull, Mr. and Mrs. Bayliss Clark,  Captain Patrick Kelly of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and Garibaldi Masado.   Ray Yost, 19, was arrested for attempting to loot the damaged rooms.  Sonaya Koraka was arrested for driving over the fire hoses.

Before the embers had cooled, the Marysville Hotel directors and lease holders were meeting to determine a path forward.  Twenty-four rooms were ready for guest use by Monday evening.  Plans were laid for reconstruction, with initial estimates putting damage at $110,000 to the building and $40,000 to the furnishing.

Of the stores in the hotel, only the barber shop escaped water damage.  Palm Drug Store, James Poole Jewelry, Blanche Benjamin Women's Clothing, McKenney Gift Shop, Ralph McCormick's office, and the California Lands office were all damaged.

The Hotel Marysville had a few good decades, but then began a long, gradual decline that ended with the hotel closing in 1985.  A few of the key events are listed to the left.

It is interesting to note that at some point in the 1950s a group of investors appear to have purchased most or all of the Marysville Hotel Company shares.  During the May 1963 lawsuit, the hotel owners are listed as:

• Isador and Doris Cheim
• Dr. and Mrs. Benjamin E. Miller
• Mr. and Mrs. Ray Manwell
• Dr. and Mrs. Rocco Montano
• Dr. and Mrs. James J. Hamilton
• Dr. and Mrs. Stanley R. Parkinson
• Mr. and Mrs. Curt A. Otto
• Mr. and Mrs. Charles Mathews

By the late 1970s, newspaper articles listed the Hotel Marysville owners as Isador and Doris Cheim who owned quite a bit of property in Marysville.  Isador died on December 9, 1975 and Doris passed away on October 16, 1979 at her home.  Their heirs then sold the hotel.

Since then, a series of owners have tried to redevelop the Hotel Marysville with many great concepts such as a brewery and condos.   However, none have been able to make the financial numbers work out and the building sits vacant and boarded up to this day - 35 years after the Hotel Marysville closed.