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When Monmouth was established as the county seat of Warren County in 1831, one of its first priorities was to construct a courthouse where the legal business of the county could be conducted. Legal proceedings in the building required a judge and attorneys, who in those days traveled on a circuit. Therefore, the next priority was to construct a hotel where judges and lawyers could sleep and eat.

In 1833, James Garrison arrived from Ohio and constructed a log building on the south side of Broadway, between A and B streets. He charged 6 cents per night or 12 cents with a single bed (attorneys like Lincoln regularly shared beds with their colleagues).

As Monmouth grew, the number of visitors grew as well, and another hotel, called the American House, was built a few years later on the west side of the 100 block of North Main. It was a frame building, which was likely more attractive than the log Garrison’s Inn. When the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith was given a hearing in Monmouth by circuit judge Stephen A. Douglas in 1841, the American House was the modern hotel of choice. Douglas, lawyers, Smith and his party all slept there.

During the 1850s, more hotels followed—the Baldwin House, built on the site of Security Savings Bank, where Lincoln stayed in 1858 during his senatorial campaign, the Palmer House on North Main, and the Hotel Monmouth, built on the site of the current post office in 1854. In 1877, a fine brick hotel was erected at the northeast corner of South First and East First Ave. The renowned dancer, Loie Fuller, who would take Paris by storm at the turn of the century with her provocative “serpentine” dances, grew up in that establishment, which her father managed.

Monmouth’s “grand hotel” was the Colonial, built in 1906 on the current site of Midwest Bank. Costing $54,000, it was truly the first modern hotel in Monmouth, with such amenities as electricity and running water.

With the construction of the Colonial, it is not surprising that older hotels, such as the Palmer  House, fell on hard times. Over the years, that establishment at the southwest corner of Boston and North Main, had passed through numerous hands. It had been known variously as the Garrison House, the Hammond House and the Bruner House. In 1910, a 65-year-old Civil War veteran from Galesburg named John Jacobs had leased the building and was preparing to renovate it under the name City Hotel.

In the early morning hours of Tuesday, May 4, 1910, John Lorimer, a realtor who lived just north of the City Hotel, was awakened by flames shooting out of the north side of the City Hotel. He ran into the street and began to yell for help. Two policemen were on duty in the police station on the corner directly south, but in between them and the hotel was a livery barn. It was not uncommon for the police to hear late-night shouting from the barn, as rigs were returned to the stables at all hours. They paid no attention to the calls of Lorimer, who ran to the front of the hotel and proceeded to kick down the front door.

Met by a large wall of flame, Lorimer stepped away from the door. At about the same time, Ed Calhoun of Galesburg, a friend of the proprietor, leaped to the sidewalk from his second-story window. Meanwhile, the police learned of the emergency and alerted the fire department. Firemen tried to enter the building through a window, but were also driven back, as the old wooden building had become a tinderbox.

After a half hour, the building was saturated with water, allowing the firefighters to finally enter the building. They found Jacobs’ body in the room where the fire originated. He was lying face-down partially under the bed with his clothes and shoes on and his face was badly burned. On the floor they found a lamp with a broken chimney.

A 23-year-old man named Budd Miller had been staying in a room facing Main Street, adjoining Calhoun’s quarters. An exceedingly sound sleeper, who had recently been fired from a job at a Monmouth livery stable because he couldn’t be easily wakened, Miller was found on his bed, terribly burned about the face and limbs.

Both bodies were taken across the street to the White undertaking parlors. A coroner’s jury was empaneled the following afternoon, and the deaths were ruled accidental. Blood found on Jacob’s face had caused rumors that his death and the fire were the result of foul play, but the jury believed the bleeding was the result of a fall.

Ed Calhoun, the victim from Galesburg who had leaped to safety, was listed in serious condition, with broken bones in his foot and a fractured collar bone, but he was expected to recover.

No cause of the fire was determined, but the broken lamp on the floor of the room where the fire started suggests a possible cause. Although many Monmouth buildings were equipped with electricity by 1910, the City Hotel apparently was not.

A funeral for Budd Miller was held Wednesday afternoon. A native of Gerlaw, he had been a member of Company H of the Illinois National Guard, and he was buried in Gerlaw Cemetery following a military service. Jacobs’ funeral was held the following day in Galesburg, attended by the Grand Army of the Republic Post.

The hotel was owned by Lucius A. Babcock, the proprietor of a paint and wallpaper store on the north side of the Public Square. It was insured for $500, but losses were estimated at only $300, so Babcock was apparently fortunate—especially because he lived in the days before wrongful death suits! The hotel was torn down shortly after the fire, as it does not appear in the 1913 Sanborn fire map of Monmouth.

Hotel Monmouth was torn down in the late 1950s and the Colonial Hotel was razed in 1970 to make way for the National Bank’s Colonial Drive-In. At that time, Meling’s Motel and the Highlander Motel, both located near the intersection of Routes 34 and 67, were Monmouth’s only lodging places. Today, the AmericInn, on the site of Meling’s, and Super 8, immediately east of there, are the city’s only hotels.

For Maple City Memories, I’m Jeff Rankin.

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