THE FRONTIER HOTEL

The field of hospitality expanded as the nation's railroads moved into the undeveloped western part of the nation. The first significant development of hotels came with the rapidly expanding American railroad system in the 1800's. Trains needed to "rest" and to refuel; occa­sionally one track had to cross the rails of another railroad; the boilers of early steam engines needed to be replenished with water every couple of hundred miles or so; the wood for the engine's furnaces needed replenishing; relief engineers, firemen, and brakemen, as well as track walkers and repair crews were needed. All of this meant that a new type of logistic problem was emerging on the American scene, and that as the tracks headed west, so, too, did all of the workers and suppliers.

The towns already in existence were eager to be on the rights-of-way, and bitter contests are recorded in the history of our West to become the town with the railroad. This meant that a simple agrarian community could now become a cosmopolitan hub, receiving goods from the East, shipping farmers' produce out, having people of other towns, not so fortunate as to have the railroad, visit the "mainline town" to conduct their business. This sometimes meant driving cattle across country, delivering agricultural goods, or becoming merchants' catering to the new life stream brought to the community by the railroad. Also, the 'expanding West required new settlers; they would go as far as possible by train, and then use the Conestoga wagon for the rest of the trip. Towns where the transfer was made became important centers of commerce, especially if they were strategically located on the new nation's inland waterways. St. Louis was such a town, and as the tracks moved farther west, the city took on a new character; St. Louis was no longer a simple transfer station, but a complex, cultured community which for many years was at the center of all of this activity.

All of these people moving west, as well as the ones who stayed in the mainline towns, had need for accommodations—and this meant that hotels located near the railroads were a necessity.

As the American migration moved westward in the 1850's and 1860's, the American experience in hotel planning became clear: where the tracks and the water towers went, the hotel should go.

A typically "good" hotel in those days was probably five stories tall, offered about 200 bedroom accommodations, a bar, and public dining facilities. The intense competition led to the development of many ornate hotels possessing a hodgepodge of roccoco, renaissance, baroque, and ultimately Victorian architectural elements. Among the most famous of these were the Saint Charles of New Orleans, Saint Louis' Lindell House, the Palmer House of Chicago, and San Francisco's Palace—the "Jewel of the West." These palatial structures were, for the most part, too expensive to serve the needs of many of our settlers who usually came west because of their limited means. To entice this traffic into hotels and out of tents and Conestoga wagons, it soon became necessary to offer economical accommodations. Often the choice available to the traveler was limited: he could stay in comparatively plush surroundings, or he could spend the nights in a primitive hotel almost on the tracks. In some of these smaller nineteenth century hotels, with their clapboard construction, it must have seemed that passing trains were going through the bed! Undoubtedly many a worried room guest would fear that as the sound of the iron monster approached, belching fumes, fire, and smoke, it would jump the track and sendhim to Kingdom Come. By the 1880's the need for comfortable, moderately priced hotels matured, and many now forgotten hotels began catering to the emerging middle class. The trend toward luxury,though, was not to be abated.