Route 66 in the News
Hotel Celebrates 10th Year of Renewal
2007-11-01 07:04:26
CLAREMORE, Okla. - Will Rogers Hotel at the northeast corner of Will Rogers Boulevard and Route 66 will be host to a 10th anniversary celebration Friday, marking the decade since the landmark was reopened.
“I can’t believe it’s been 10 years already,” said Jane Sallee, manager. “We wanted to do something to mark the occasion, so we’re hosting a celebration and inviting the public to come visit, tour the hotel, and reacquaint themselves with one of Claremore’s most historic architectural treasures.”
The Hotel Will Rogers was built during 1929 and dedicated on Feb. 7, 1930 — a joint business venture of Louis Abraham, Walter Krumrei, and Morton Harrison, who were capitalizing on the Radium mineral water health craze of the time.
The Spanish decor was selected to resemble Will Rogers’ Santa Monica, Calif., home, at a cost of $321,000 for building materials and furnishings.
Discovered in 1903, mineral water baths became an important part of the hotel’s service.
The rotten-egg-smelling water was analyzed and found to contain 13 minerals, including sulfur, salt and iron, about which, Will Rogers joked it would “cure you of everything but being a Democrat.”
People also came to the hotel because of the service.
The hotel fell on hard times and was closed in 1991. The Rogers County Historical Society purchased the landmark in January 1994 for $1 to save it from destruction.
Knowing the project was bigger than the society could handle by itself, it entered a partnership with MetroPlains Development, Inc. of St. Paul, Minn. and Wa-Ro-Ma Community Action.
Rehabilitation of the Will Rogers Hotel began in February 1997 at a cost of more than $2.5 million. The grand re-opening was on Nov. 15, 1997.
“The renovation itself was massive,” Sallee said. “We (saved) as much of the original hotel as we could — the exterior, the lobbies, the hallways — but we made renovations to upgrade and update the rest of the hotel.
“It’s funny, when I first got involved with the renovation, it was because of the building itself and its historic significance,” she said, “but now, it’s the residents that are most important to me — they’re my family — I just love them.”
Today, the hotel stays full with 38 tenants living on site.
“Some of our residents have lived here since we re-opened ... ” Sallee said. “They find the history of the hotel itself with the modern conveniences of today to be a unique experience, and go to their rooms and get on the Internet — everything from the past to the present and in-between.”
~Tom Fink, Claremore Progress
See also:
- Vintage postcards featuring the Hotel Will Rogers: 1 | 2
- Full List of Route 66 In The News Articles
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