Eagle/Roe's Hotel
Roe's Hotel
Eagle/Roe’s Hotel (25-49 East Main Street) was located approximately between today’s Blum’s and Public House 49. Austin Roe’s grandson, “Uncle Austin”, as he was called, and his wife, Martha Ketcham Roe, worked side by side at the Eagle Hotel for many years. Austin and Martha retired in 1892 and their son “Gilly” (Gelston G. Roe) often leased the hotel to outside managers.
An enormous addition was built to the left side of the Eagle Hotel in 1893 to sit between the Eagle and the original tavern. In the 1910 postcard, the Eagle Hotel is the small wing on the right. Downtown architecture in the mid-nineteenth century like the 1851 Eagle Hotel was typically unadorned. The larger 1893 Roe’s Hotel addition was built in the High Victorian style popular forty years later. Details include dentil molding below the remarkably grand roof balustrade with overhanging eaves and support brackets. The miniature gable on the roof announcing Roe’s Hotel is elegantly applied.
In 1910 Roe’s Hotel had a telegraph office, stores and the hotel lobby on street level. The bar, dining room and kitchen were located behind the stores and guest rooms were upstairs. The image above shows Roe’s Hotel enlarged by storefront additions reaching to the street, a common practice when real estate is at a premium.
In the early 1900s, bicycle clubs (“wheelmen”) raced 50 miles from the city on Saturday, overnighted at Roe’s Hotel, then rode 50 miles back to the city on Sunday to complete a “century run.” Special train cars outfitted to carry bicycles returned some weary cyclists to the city.
Today this is the home of many stores, encompassing the area from Blum’s to around Public House 49. Blum’s got its 1927 start in the Mills Building but was here during a devastating fire in 1934. After the fire, this section of East Main Street was rebuilt for street front stores with only a small portion of the venerable Roe’s Hotel remaining.
Before you take the crosswalk, can you spot these: a pre-1930 masonry (Picture 2), 1924 Terracotta swag (Picture 3), and a pre-1885 Italianate building (Picture 4).