page_title: Cambridge Springs station
section_title: 1904 chess tournament
hierarchical_section_title: Cambridge Springs station / 1904 chess tournament
caption_attribution_description: English: Cambridge Springs 1904 Tournament Poster
context_page_description: Cambridge Springs was a railroad station for the Erie Railroad in Cambridge Springs, Crawford County, Pennsylvania, United States. Cambridge Springs station was on the Main Line's Meadville Division, which was the section of the line between Salamanca, New York and Meadville, Pennsylvania. The station was located 501.2 miles from Manhattan and the Barclay Street Ferry, which connected to Pavonia Terminal in Jersey City, New Jersey and 480.8 miles from Hoboken Terminal in Hoboken, New Jersey. For nearly three decades, the station had connections to the Northwestern Pennsylvania Railway, which was a trolley line that connected the city of Erie and Meadville. Modern Erie Railroad station signage denoted the station as "Home of Alliance College," a local private university that closed in 1987.
  Service to Cambridge Springs began in October 1862, with completion of the Atlantic and Great Western Railway to Meadville, a 6 ft railway that originally went from Salamanca to Corry, Pennsylvania until work was suspended in 1861 due to financial issues.
context_section_description: Cambridge Springs was the host of the first major chess competition held in the United States in the 20th century, with the competition being held at the borough's Rider Hotel, a majestic, six-story structure constructed from 1895–1897. The hotel, which became a large booster of traffic to Cambridge Springs for the mineral spring spas, held a major theater inside, and from April 25–May 19, 1904, an international chess conference was held. This chess conference, called a "congress", had sponsorship from several people, including the Erie Railroad, along with the owner of the hotel, William D. Rider. The Erie exploited the tournament, as the station agent at Cambridge Springs would be giving away informational booklets about Cambridge Springs, taking out full-page advertisements to sponsor the tournament, with the railroad in large capital letters. The tournament in itself was a major success, bringing many people from the United States and Europe, eventually won by Frank Marshall (1877–1944) in an upset over David Janowski.
  There was intent to hold another chess conference in 1905 in Cambridge Springs, however, the death of William Rider on September 13, 1905, who had a major piece in creating the original, killed off any hopes for a second tournament. The following owners after Rider could not maintain the amount of popularity the hotel had under Rider, changing names to the Vanadium. However, this was not enough and in 1911 the Rider Hotel was sold to the Polish National Alliance, who used the hotel as Alliance College. Alliance College opened in 1912, with almost 9,000 students and a dedication ceremony involving President of the United States William Howard Taft. The former hotel, which housed the entire college, burned down in a 1931 fire. The college would rebuild on the site off Beach Avenue, as well as be signed at the Erie Railroad depot, but only remain open until 1987, when it closed. Four years later, the state of Pennsylvania took the current site and turned it into State Correctional Institution – Cambridge Springs, a prison for women.
caption: An advertisement of the 1904 Cambridge Springs International Chess Congress, sponsored by the Erie Railroad, held in Cambridge Springs
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