Creating grand hotels in the lakeside city
Published 12:00 am Sunday, March 26, 2006
Editor’s note: This is the third part in a three-part series.
By Ed Shannon, staff writer
During the first four decades of Albert Lea’s history the local hotels were somewhat modest in size. This was about to change in 1897 when a promoter named George Carrington proposed to construct a large hotel about where the present American Legion building is now located.
Carrington had successfully developed the residential area now called Oakwood Park. His next projects were to construct an electric railroad between Albert
Lea and Geneva and have a large four- or five-floor hotel at the south end of the line. Plans were created for the hotel and several shares in the Albert Lea and Geneva Railway were sold to local investors.
However, these grandiose plans faded with the sudden death of Carrington on Nov. 14, 1900.
Yet, right at this time a large new hotel was already operating about four blocks to the south on Broadway.
Construction of the Hotel Albert started on May 9, 1899, and the formal opening was held May 4, 1900. This then three-story building was at the corner of South Broadway Avenue and East College Street and adjacent to the Freeborn County Courthouse.
What evolved as the city’s leading hotel was constructed at a cost of $65,000 owned by Charles Jorgenson, W.A. Morin and C.A. Ransom.
In 1915 a group of local business leaders proposed that a six- to eight-story hotel be constructed at the very north end of Broadway Avenue overlooking Fountain Lake. This project failed to materialize when an attempt to raise $125,000 to get this project underway was unsuccessful.
The concept of a large lakeside hotel was again revived in early 1922. A committee of 15 local civic leaders was formed and the Business Men’s League (a predecessor of the Chamber of Commerce) endorsed the construction of this nine-story structure which was also based on Fountain Street.
An article in the Feb. 8, 1922, issue of the Tribune reported on a speech given to the league by
Frank B. Chase, the architect for the new hotel. It said:
&8220;… the hotel as designed will have. a frontage facing Broadway of 110 feet and 72 feet in depth and that the approximate cost of the hotel, including the site, would be $350,000.
&8220;The guest rooms for the accommodation of the traveler, touring and business man will number 120. Every room is to be with bath at prices ranging from $1.50 to $3.00 per day. The prices are
said to be very normal compared to other first class hotels.
&8220;The, guest rooms for travelers, automobile tourists, resident and business men will be really modern. The dining room will be so arranged that the center of the social life of this city can be carried on and large conventions can be accommodated.
&8220;The plans also call for a coffee shop which will served medium priced meals to the traveling public and many people of the city; private dining rooms for clubs, associations and social luncheons and dinners; a fine ball room on the mezzanine floor which will provide facilities for dances, receptions, parties, both afternoon and evening; a drug store in which will be sold all of
the articles in demand by the traveling public, as well as drugs, soda fountain, etc.; a complete barber shop in basement; a few large and well located sample rooms (for salesmen) on the mezzanine floor; a bowling alley will be provided in the basement and can be developed into a daily source of large revenue if the club and community ideas develop locally.
&8220;The terrace will be used for afternoon and evening parties in connection with bathing and dancing and can throughout the summer months be the center of the social life of the city. An admission charge is to be made for the use of the beach and the dancing floor, and in connection with the terrace there will be a restaurant for serving cold drinks, light refreshments, etc.
&8220;In the basement a place for the use of swimmers with locker rooms will be provided, in connection with which will be furnished bathing suits.
&8220;The popularity of the hotel would be enhanced by the operation of boating facilities.&8221;
Despite the promotional efforts, this second attempt for a large hotel at the north end of Broadway Avenue never became a reality. The proposed site for the second hotel became what’s now Fountain Lake Park in the 1930s.
Still, the city needed more hotel rooms. As a result, the Hotel Albert expanded upward and added two more stories in 1923, and more building additions within a few years.
By 1926 this particular business was advertising it was &8220;the largest commercial hotel per capita in the United States.&8221; The claim was also being made that the Hotel Albert with its 225 rooms &8220;could accommodate more people than all the hotels in Austin and Owatonna,&8221; according to the new owner, Carl S. Jacobson.
Jacobson, incidentally, purchased the Elks Hotel of Austin in 1924. He changed the name to Austin Hotel and operated it in tandem with the Hotel Albert for 20 years.
One of the most popular parts of this hotel in 1926 was the Jefferson Cafe. This eating place was named for both the highway (now U.S. 65) which ran past the main entry and the pioneer bus firm which used this hotel as its Albert Lea depot for about four decades.
In 1929 Jacobson added the Spanish Dining Room to the hotel. This became the city’s prime dining establishment and the site used by many organizations for their meetings and special events.
During World War II in the early 1940s a portion of this hotel was used as a dormitory for a group of U.S. Navy cadets taking basic flight training at the then new Albert Lea Airport north of the city.
Sometime after World War II, Donald E. Jacobson, Carl’s son, took over management of the Hotel Albert.
This hotel ceased operations in 1966. It became the Albert House, a dormitory for students at Lea College. A bus service ran between this former hotel and the college campus west of the city.
The end for the large Hotel Albert building came in late 1971 and early 1972 when it was demolished. The US Bank now occupies the half-block once the location of the city’s elite hotel and several business firms facing Broadway Avenue.
Now, instead of hotels, the land between the lakes has an assortment of motels for the traveling public and visits to Albert Lea.
(Contact Ed Shannon at ed.shannon@albertleatribune.com or call 379-3438.)