Commercial Hotel 303 N. Market 1904
I am fairly certain that the Commercial Hotel at 303 N. Market Street was created out of necessity. For years this location had been the home of a very large family. John Henry and Almira Catherine (Barham) Reynolds had seen the birth of 12 children and already the deaths of at least three or four.
When John passed away on September 8, 1891, Almira, who had no occupation and was left with several children likely had no other options than to utilize what she had and start taking in boarders.
With a very large home that was conveniently located between the railroad depot in the 500 block of North Market and the Public Square it was a natural location. I suspect the business would have started within a year or two of her husband’s death in 1891.
In 1900, she had the assistance of her youngest son Frank to help her. Frank was 18 and had just married that year. He and his wife Wylie, lived at the hotel and assisted his mother. Frank was officially listed as “hotel porter” on the census records. Mandy Hundley, a 69 year old widow from Indiana served as dishwasher and lived in the hotel. Only one boarder is listed on the census, Tom Hannon, a single, 28 year old baker from Alabama.
By 1910, both her son Frank and another son Charles had both been widowed so both were living in the hotel. The Hotel Cook for that year was a 22 year old lady named Lizzie Good. They list only one boarder in the census of that year taken in April. His name was given as “Frenchie” on the census records and he, of course, was a Frenchman working as a common laborer.
When 1920 rolled around, Almira had reached her 78th year and was still living in the hotel but was now renting the business to Claude and Mamie Norman, both in their mid-thirties. Claude was a coal mine laborer and Mamie was managing the hotel which, when the census was taken, had seventeen boarders in occupancy. Also, living at the hotel was a 26 year old chambermaid named Jessie Stockton. Jessie was a widow from Kentucky.
After Almira died in 1923, the hotel appears to have remained in existence under the name of the Canada Hotel, named after the new owner Nelson Canada. It should be noted that the Williams Hotel at 305 ½ N. Market St. came into existence right next door in the late 1920’s.
When the 1930’s rolled around, the existence of the old hotel vanished in the directories so it’s likely that it was demolished around 1930 or shortly thereafter and replaced with the brick structures that some of us still can remember.
(Photo and some data from 1905 Souvenir History; city directories; federal census records; compiled by Sam Lattuca on 02/15/2013)