The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1923-01-11
PASSING OF PLANTERS"
ST. LOUIS FAMOUS HOTEL
CENTER OF SOCIAL LIFE OF OLD
SOUTH--NOTED NAMES
ON REGISTER.

Closing of the Planters hotel mark
cd the passing of a hostelry replete
with tradition of the middle west, and
particularly the southland. The "old
Planters house" in which history has
been made, will be converted into an
office building some time after Janu-
airy l.
Typewriters will click in rooms
where presidents slept Office boys will
hustle across floors once strobe by
stately banqueters, and business men
will plan battles of dollars in rooms in
which political battles have been won
and lost, and in which the capture of
Camp Jackson was planned in 1861.
The Planters, one of the best known
hotels in the south and middle west,
was built by Evarist Maury in 1917. 1t
then was a two-story frame structure,
and il early acquired a reputation for
the fine "oats and hay given guests
horses. The name was changed TO
"the Planters house" in 1871, when a
tour-story structure was built at a
cost of 100000 This was acclaimed
a ''veritable palace" In 1894 the pres
emit structure was completed at a cost
of $1,SOO.OO under its original name
PLANTERS hotel"
Center Of Social Life.
In the '4Os and sos the hostelry was
the center of the social life of this sec
ton. Planters of the north and south
brought their families here for the
winter months to taste the joys of the
hotels hospitality The women with
their hoop skirts, gathered in circles
in the parlors to quilt and embroider.
After supper the tables were cleared.
the carpets folded. the gas jets In the
huge glass chandeliers lighted, and the
grace and beauty of Missouri, Ken
lucky, Tennessee and Alabama as
sembled for the minuet and the Vir-
sinia reel There were northerners.
too. but not in proportion to the num-
Der of southern guests.
Stirring moments were brought to
the Planters by the Civil war Here
Frank p. Blair and Nathaniel Lyon
conferred preceding the capture of
Camp Jackson. May 10 1861 On
June IL. 1861, the conference which
resulted in the fight of brother
against brother" in Missouri was held
at the Planters, when Lyon dramat-
ically declared his loyalty to the north
and departed to enlist Missourians in
the federal army.
The Planters became a political
battle-ground with the reconstruction
days, and the hosiery has had a gem
erous share of every political cam
paign since 1870
House of Presidents.
Old records show that such person
ages as the following signed the reg
lister of the hotel. Presidents Lincoln,
Grant. Cleveland. Roosevelt Taft,
Martin Van Buren,. King Edward VII, |
then prince of Wales; Charles Dick |
ems. Jay Gould and William f. Cody
Writing Of the hotel in his 'Ameri- /
can Notes." Mr. Dickens said:
I'VE went to large hotel called the \
Planters with long passages and sky 4
lights above the doom doors for the !
free circulation of air. There were
great many boarders in it, and as
many lights sparlded and glistened |,
from the windows down into the
street below when we drove up as II |,
it had been illuminated on some oc-
casion Of rejoicing It is an excellent
house and the proprietors have most
bountiful notions of providing the
with comforts. Dining alone
with my wife in our room one day |,
counted Il dishes on the table at
once"
As one enters the Planters now he I
sees a large key above the marble "
desk. It is four and one-half feet I
long, and tradition says it was used v
to open the first door of the Planters. f
II will be used with ceremony in clos K
ing the hotel at midnight December S
81. Below the key is a gilded horse In
SHOE welded by Bob Fitzsimmons, the le
asshter, as = token OF good luck 10 tine "
hotel a
A number of the present employees Z
nave been with the hosiery for 25 d
Ind 30 years.