Collection: Books and Periodicals > Nevada County Historical Society Bulletins

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Title: Volume 056-4 - October 2002 Collection Type: Books and Periodicals Collection Name: Nevada County Historical Society Bulletins # of Pages: 6 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2014-03-12 07:26:16 OCR Software Version #: tesseract 5.4.1 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-17 04:06:01 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 04:06:01

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

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The Holbrooke Hotel by Bedford Lampkin — Te HOLBROOKE HOTEL HAD ITS BEGINNINGS AS the Exchange Hotel. Prior to that there were buildings that would be incorporated into the hotel: the bar and the Gold Exchange building. However, let’s start with what it looks like today. TODAY The Holbrooke Hotel fronts onto West Main Street in Grass Valley. The entrance is flanked by two iron doors that served in the past as fire retardants. As we enter, there is a spacious reception lobby with the venerable bar to the right behind glass doors. To the left is a small reading room. Next is the high registration desk and just behind that is the large dining room with several small meeting rooms off to the side. Outside the rear of the main building is a patio for informal dining in pleasant weather. Down the stairs is the Iron Door, a room which is large and appropriate to meetings or entertainment. The hotel is a two-story building with the guest rooms on the second floor. There are seventeen rooms in the main building. Behind the hotel and separated by perhaps forty yards is the Purcell House, which is an annex to the hotel. It also is a two-story building and contains ten guest rooms. _~, nthe lobby there is a locked glass case containing a guest registry book opened to the date of April 25, 1898. On that date the names of two ex-Presidents, Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland, and two well-known boxers, James Corbett and Bob Fitzsimmons, appear. Strangely enough, the presence of these notables was not noted in the local papers at the time, which makes one think that perhaps it was a prank, or, as the United States declared war on (~ —__ Nevada Gounty Historical Society Bulletin VOLUME 56 NUMBER 4 OCTOBER 2002 Spain that day, the news got lost in the shuffle. Even with modern appointments in each room, there is a scattering of antiques, and the hotel offers a charming mid19th-century ambience. BEGINNINGS Let us start with a reference in Thompson and West’s 1880 History of Nevada County. On page 67 is the first mention of a hotel on the location of the present Holbrooke Hotel as follows: About five o’clock P.M., August 15, 1862, flames burst out of the Center Market, on the north side of Main street and rapidly spread to the adjoining buildings, whose dry and seasoned timbers but gave them added fierceness. Protection Hose Co. quickly repaired to the scene, and with the assistance of many volunteers commenced the struggle, which was terminated in their favor only after long and tireless exertions. The Exchange Hotel, a new building but partly finished, was on fire several times, but was saved from destruction. In the same reference there is mention of a Mr. William K. Spencer who “opened a stationery store where the Holbrooke now stands, and was burned out in 1855.” The Holbrooke Hotel in 2002. (Author’s photo.) (Right) 1853 map of downtown Grass Valley shows Golden Gate Saloon and neighboring buildings. (Calif. State Library) -c . = »~ way ae jeu me) yj yw" [ & MAIN STAR = & sv \ yee U