JAMESTOWN, NY December 31, 1924 – When the Evening Journal reached city homes on this date, subscribers could see that the Paquin-Snyder Co., at its five “groceterias” around the City, was selling Hershey’s cocoa for 12 cents for a half pound, white sugar for 7 cents a pound and imported Swedish brown beans for 13 cents a pound. They would also see that the movie “Thief of Baghdad” starring Douglas Fairbanks would be playing at Shea’s, with matinee tickets starting at 50 cents. Also of interest was a man who was arrested for being drunk and disorderly on Hamilton Street while trying to impersonate a Comanche Indian.
Many residents and visitors had, for some many months, watched curiously as a 10-story building went up at the corner of West Third and Cherry Streets. It was to be the new Hotel Jamestown, boasting luxuries that were inconceivable to the average resident, and it was set to open on New Year’s Eve, December 31, 1924.
“The Journal today may very well be designated as the Hotel Jamestown edition,” the paper’s editorial column began.
The idea for the hotel was the brainstorm of many local businessmen who recognized the need for it based on the large number of people coming to the City to buy furniture and do business at the new Furniture Mart Building at Second and Washington Streets.
Local businessman Frank Olaus Anderson, born in Doestorp, Kalmar, Sweden, took the lead on getting the new Hotel built. According to Saga From The Hills, Frank led a group of Jamestown citizens in raising over $1 million in 1923 to form the Hotel Jamestown Corporation. Frank O., as he was known, served as President of the Corporation, and as the construction proceeded, he made sure that all supplies and accoutrements were purchased from local businesses. Windows, floor tile, furniture, textiles and even the toothpicks were either made in Jamestown, or as close to home as possible. There was a telephone in every room, supplied by the Jamestown Telephone Corporation.
One of the Journal’s main stories told of the Hotel Jamestown being a “credit to the City” with its 256 bedrooms, the Crystal Ballroom and public dining room, three smaller private dining rooms and an “office section” with six stores and 100 offices. The main dining room could seat between 150 and 200 people. Near the Cherry Street entrance was the “coffee room” or cafeteria, which could seat 125-150 people. The Journal reported that coffee rooms such as these were taking the place of the bar room in “every metropolitan hostelry.” The Jamestown coffee room had a tile floor and casement windows of “Cathedral glass and ornamental art glass panels illustrating scenes from the old coffee shops of England.”
The Hotel had its grand opening on New Year’s Eve 1924, “lending a touch of the metropolitan to the downtown section … (it is) without a doubt one of the largest and finest hotels that few cities, if any, the size of Jamestown can boast of, and it stands complete now – a monument to those Jamestown citizens who conceived and planned its erection and who gave of their time and financial assistance in order that another of Jamestown’s dreams might be realized.”
