Old Missoula

Hotels, Motels Thrive In Busy Garden City

Every year Missoula is host to many tourists. The Garden City’s 12 hotels have more than 700 rooms. Its largest and pioneer hotel has accommodated as many as 45,530 in a single year.

New Tourist Trend

A new tourist trend becomes evident in the number of Missoula’s motels. In 1956 only four motels were listed in the City Directory, whereas in 1960, 34 are listed, the largest of which has 45 units.

The motels offer such conveniences as kitchenettes, television, telephones and easy access to highways.

Pioneer Hotel

Missoula hotels, not unlike the inns of years ago, continue year after year to offer their hospitality to the traveler. Missoula’s pioneer hotel, Hotel Florence, was erected in 1888 on the corner of West Front street and Higgins avenue. In 1913 the first building burned. A new building was erected which remained until destroyed by fire in September 1936, and in 1941 the present structure was built.

The present Hotel Florence building cost about $850,000 to build and equip. In 1941 the building was completely air conditioned. In 1956 the Hotel Florence Co. expended $400,000 for a 10-level, 120 car pigeonhole parking garage and hotel addition. This provided garage facilities and a direct entrance to the lobby, a store location on the ground floor and space for offices on the second floor.

Latest Improvement

The latest improvement is the construction of a new bar and cocktail lounge at a cost of $50,000. The new facility is in the space which formerly housed the Zephyr Bar. The bar and lounge is called Traveler’s Rest, the name Lewis and Clark gave to the site where they camped near Missoula.

Banquet facilities in the Bitter Root Room of Hotel Florence accommodate 500, and 300 can be served in the Mayfair and Governor’s Rooms.

In 1959 the hotel’s 150 rooms accommodated 39,018 guests.

The Hotel Florence Co. consists of about 90 stockholders with Walter H. McLeod as president. The hotel operates under Prosper F. Paul, assistant general manager. Employes number 125 with a payroll of $250,000 per year.

Many of Missoula’s businessmen have at one time or another lived under the gables of the Missoula Hotel.

The hotel was completed in 1890 by Kennedy and Mitchell, pioneer hotel men of Montana, and played an important part in the history of Missoula when the Coeur d’Alene branch of the Northern Pacific Railway was under construction. The city was enjoying boom days and the hotel with its 103 rooms housed every guest whom the management could accommodate.

In 1920 the Missoula Hotel property on West Main street was purchased by Mary L. Smith and the late Mrs. Margaret E. McConnell. Around 1925, 16 apartments were added and in 1939 a 22-room annex and an elevator were added. Other additions included the Montmartre Café with its Blue Room and Crystal Room and the Jungle Club bar and cocktail lounge which now serves as headquarters for the American Legion.

The hotel’s apartments were the first in Missoula to have refrigerators and the hotel first introduced automatic doors in Missoula in 1957. The hotel has 76 rooms and 16 apartments. It is owned by the Missoula Hotel Co. and managed by Joseph E. Snead.

Palace

The Palace Hotel, located at the corner of Stevens Street and Broadway was completed in 1909 at a cost of $100,000. The owner was Elvina LaCasse.

Later, Roger J. Fleming and J. Roger Fleming operated the Palace for several years until 1933 when the lease ended, and David E. Anderson and the late Alfred Sterner, owners, took over.

In 1941 a 48-room annex was added to the east making a total of 148 rooms. The hotel’s Empress Room accommodates 300; its Rose Room serves 70 and its Mission Room serves 20. Food service is supplied by Happy Henry’s Café which is leased to Henry Alexis by hotel owners David Anderson and Mrs. Irene Squires.

The Palace Hotel employs 23.