The Mitchell capital. (Mitchell, Dakota [S.D.]) 1879-1918, 1907-05-31
MOUNTAIN RESORT
ROOMLESS HOTEL
"Individual" Cottages Take
Place of the Usual Many
Roomed Hostelry.
From the New York Herald.

FROM the New YORK f1eIalu.
This is the day of the minus quantity.
Everywhere we go we near the warning
'hoot NOM" of the hOrseleSS carriage,
our battles are fought with ~snlokeiess
powder, our messages sent by wireless
telegraph, and we nave grown so used
to-less things that it causes barely
momentary surprise to VI across a
roomless hotel.
This hotel novelty is perched or the
very tip top of Mount Wilson, q peak
in the Sierra Madres, We'll known to
climbers thereabouts. When
you go into this hotel office, after Il
climb up one OF the prettiest and most
varied trails in n of the southern
ranges, With just enough energy left to
subscribe to the fund for the enrich
ment of the ancient order of hotelkeep-
ers. it puzzles o just a little to have
the clerk say come this way" and
instead of showing you to an elevator
or up an elbowed stair and down 4 long
room lined corridor. lead you back out
Of the door by which you have just
entered. You wcnde if he is going to
look after the burros first, or if he is
about to show you Il trail by which
you could have cut off a mile or two.
or point out one of the top line features
of the place; and while you are Won
dering you are getting a hundred yards
or so ava from what you thought was
the hotel, and before you have quit
III Soo iiild 1 opoil lilS
veranda Of a tiny cottage, the o is
thrown open, and there you are, in u
cosey room, n the only room this cot
tage boasts. If it be night when you
arrive, you may wonder vaguely if this
Is some new tangled detention camp
isolated until they car be inspected,
but the good. comfortable bed soon puts
a stop to wonderings. In the morn
ing you begin to wonder again If you
are not too busy looking out of your
window at the play of sunrise color on
the sea of clouds that float between you
and the valley.
Unique Surroundings.
Once dressed and u in the open,
you begin to understand. Scattered all
over the mountain top are toy cottages
similar to your own. Here one hangs
Dor a jutting point of rock overlook
ing a deep gorge. There another stands
half hidden in a manZanita thicket,
while still another rests on a gentle
slope with two or three giant pines
standing guard owe it.
These form an ideal substitute for
rooms in a hotel of the cliff dweller
type, and every man's room is his
castle. A few of the cottages have
a suite of two rooms, but no more. In
all they number about fifty. The CEN
trail building contains only a large din
ing room, somewhat artistically done
in beamed n panelled style; a
spacious living room, with a fireplace
occupying a generous portion of one
side, N the Kitchen. A wide veranda
Stretches along two sides, supplement-
ing the living room.
1t was no small task to carry out this
idea on a mountain top. 1t tool an
entire summer to build the Noun Will
son hotel, and for months the burrC
trains plodded back and forth, three OF
four times Il day. each of the scores OF
little beasts weighted to the last pound
of his capacity with lumber and other
building stuffs; and when at last the
buildings We're all completed they Still
had to plod back n forth. carrying
chairs, tables, bedsteads. washstands
pitchers. basins and dishes, until this
half hundred miniature houses We're
furnished. The cottages are all fin
ished inside in rustic style. with wooG
panelling, drop raftecs and burlappeG
walls. and all are well aired and lighted
by several windows.