In the late 1970’s, my wife and I visited the President Calvin Coolidge Historic Site in Plymouth, Vermont. We went to the museum and cemetery, saw the Coolidge Cheese Factory and toured the family home where Coolidge took the presidential oath, administered by his father, upon the death of President Warren Harding.
Across the street from the family home was the Coolidge birthplace, attached to the rear of the post office. While attempting to get a picture of that quaint site, I was aggravated by a station wagon disrupting my photo, that is until I was informed the driver was John Coolidge, the son of the president. He was most gracious when I asked him to join me in a picture. He told me that he had been to Elmira and specifically recalled staying at the Mark Twain Hotel.
In a 1963 Star-Gazette column, County Historian Tom Bryne wrote that the Mark Twain Hotel had “been the city’s showcase for nearly 35 years.” He noted that the erection of the hotel at Main and Gray streets had been talked about for a quarter-century before opening.
Indeed, the hotel was memorable. At the opening banquet on March 23, 1929, S.F. Iszard remarked that “As a whole, the Mark Twain is most fascinating to me. I have traveled extensively abroad and throughout the United States, and I have not seen anything in a community of this size to equal it. It is a splendid improvement to Elmira.”
The March 24 Star-Gazette also recorded other reactions. “I can’t believe that I’m in Elmira," many guests remarked. "It seems so metropolitan."
And, “From the outside, the hotel made an impression all its own. Lighted from top to bottom, with the strains of an orchestra floating faintly from the lobby out over Wisner Park, it made people say, Gee, but Elmira is a great town after all.”
An article from the vertical file at the Chemung County Historical Society notes that the eight-story building “included 212 guest rooms, each with a bath; a large main dining room, two private dining rooms, a coffee shop, a ballroom with a foyer large enough to accommodate 350 people for conventions, banquets and other social functions, a spacious lobby-lounge, three elevators of the most modern type and 12 stores and shops on the ground floor.”
The Elmira Advertiser reported on Nov. 27, 1927 that the prospect of a new hotel being built in Elmira led to an investigative scout being sent to the city by a nationally known industrial organization seeking a site for expansion. In a positive report, some of his findings were: “a population of 52,000, less than 11% foreign, two hundred fraternal and social clubs, forty-two passenger trains daily, fifty churches, one automobile to every four in the county, six theaters and a seven cent trolley fare."
The Star-Gazette noted that attorney J. John Hassett deserved the “lion’s share of the honor for making the Mark Twain possible.” With Hassett at the helm, Frederic H. Hill, vice president and general manager of the Elmira Water, Light and Railroad Co., and Arthur B. McLeod, president of the LeValley- Mcleod-Kinkaid Co., these three Elmirans comprised the “great triumvirate which directed the campaign for funds and which was highly instrumental in putting the project across.”
The $1 million required for construction was raised by the sale of bonds. Mutual Life Insurance Co. purchased $400,000 worth, and Mr. Hassett purchased $300,000, half in cash, and the other by turning over the site, which he owned for the project.
The final $300,000 was raised by public subscription. More than 450 Elmirans bid for the bonds in a fundraising drive led by the Wisner Park Corp., which was organized to build, finance and lease the hotel. The newly created Elmira Hotel Operating Corp. was granted a 21-year lease, and the Lowman Construction Corp. was selected to build the hotel.
A major obstacle to the whole project was whether or not to widen Gray Street. Citizens opposed the cost, which was estimated at $125,000. An alternative proposal was to create a new street, approximately 40 feet wide from West Gray to West Church Street through Wisner Park, just west of the First Baptist Church at a cost of $16,000. In February of 1928, a citywide referendum was held. Out of 9,000 eligible voters, 3,000 taxpayers voted to reject the plan with a 535-vote majority.
Mr. and Mrs. Hassett decided to convey to the city without cost a “strip of land 17ft wide running easterly from the southeasterly corner of West Gray and Main Streets, 169 and a fraction feet being a strip 17 feet off the entire frontage of the proposed hotel property.” (Elmira Advertiser, Feb. 29,1928). This reduced the cost of widening the street to approximately $70,000.
Ignoring the referendum, the city council voted 8-4 to widen the street. One alderman stated that he did not feel the referendum was a “fair test” of the feeling in Elmira.
Nearly 600 guests attended the opening banquet for the hotel. The Star-Gazette reported on March 25, 1929, that “As a social function the opening festivities surpassed any other similar event of the season and will long be remembered by those who attended.” One glitch, however, was that it was discovered that through “some error,” invitations to the official opening were not sent to all persons who were on the mailing list. Those who did not receive an invitation and thought they should have were urged to “get in communication” with the resident manager of the hotel.
Barbara Ramsdell, one of my excellent helpers in preparing these articles, a member of the Class of 1950 at Elmira Free Academy, recalled her senior prom at the Mark Twain. She called it “Theeee place to go for special occasions.”
She noted that “if a wedding reception was held at the Mark Twain, it was top drawer. A banquet at the Mark Twain was special with all its white linens and a row of silverware on either side of your plate. Special times!!!!”
Jim Hare is a former history teacher and mayor of the City of Elmira. His column appears monthly in the Star-Gazette.
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Elmira History: Reflecting on the legacy of the Mark Twain Hotel - Star-Gazette
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