Old Hotels

Room in the Plains Hotel

This is a room in a renovated century old hotel in Cheyenne Wyoming. I recently stayed there while traveling for work.

I've stayed in a few very old hotels before. Many years ago I spent a night in the Virginian in Medacine Bow, but it's frankly so long ago, I don't really recall it all that well. I was quite young at the time, and what I recall about that is that every room did not have bathroom, something that I found very odd at the time, and which I bet is no longer the case.

The Virginian

Much more recently I've stayed at the Hotel Higgins in Glenrock, a nice local older hotel. I don't know the age for sure, but it's probably approaching a century in age. About 17 years ago I spent a night in the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. The Stanley is famous for being used as the set of the film The Shining, but it also had some preexisting fame for being the location of the founding of the American Dental Association.

The reason I note all of this is because it's my observation, and one of the types of changes we note here, that hotel rooms were once pretty darned small. The rooms of the The Plains Hotel, where I just stayed, are very small. This isn't to say they were bad, they were just small. I don't recall the rooms in the Virginian, but the room we stayed in at the Hotel Higgins was small. The rooms at The Stanley were larger, however, but they weren't enormous either.

Apparently hotel rooms of an earlier era were just smaller. But then, why wouldn't they be? Most people weren't traveling with their families (and still aren't, for the most part, most are business travelers) and before television, and even before radio, what would you actually stay in your room to do? No TV, no radio, no internet, back when they were built. You could read, but then it doesn't take a very big room to do that.

Lobby of the Plains Hotel

A friend of mine pointed out that the major room in older hotels was the lobby. Above is the lobby of the Plains. I can see where that would have been true. After walking over from the train station, back way back when, and checking in, why not hang out in the lobby? The Stanley has a palatial lobby. The lobby of the Plains is pretty big. The lobby of the old Hotel Townsend, now the courthouse for Wyoming's Seventh Judicial District, was not unsubstantial.

It also occurs to me that then restaurants were a pretty significant feature for hotels, and bars. They still are for some hotels, but much less so for "Business Hotels" or "Business Motels". Reflecting the era, Business Motels usually have a breakfast room with easy to go breakfast items, but no restaurant. Older hotels, however, usually had a good enough restaurant that it drew town trade, and often still does. The Plains Hotel, The Virginian, or The Brown Palace in Denver, for example, all have restaurants or bars that draw in town trade.

I should note here that I'm not giving a negative review to The Plains Hotel. Its been renovated and it's not bad. It's just that the rooms are small.