Hotel Seiler

Image of Hotel Seiler from Photographic History of Newark and Licking County, 1904

The Hotel Seiler, also known as the Germania Hotel and Central Hotel, was one of Newark's notable, turn-of-the-twentieth-century landmarks. Located on South Second Street at the corner with Franklin, there is some confusion over the origins of the hotel; an Advocate article from 1903 claimed that a David Fisher built the Germania around 1840, importing much of the hardware and furnishings from Germany. This appears to be a misleading origin story for the hotel. David Fisher was listed as the property owner in maps from 1853 and 1866, and it is possible that the facility operated for decades as a boarding house or tavern, with a restaurant and saloon attached. It was a common theme in Newark in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries for multiple iterations of hotels to occupy the same site over the course of decades.

Unlike many of the other restaurants and saloons on Second Street during the period, the building at the corner of Franklin and Second was brick and may have has a greater presence than other structures on Newark's notorious "Gingerbread Row." <Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Newark, Licking County, Ohio. Sanborn Map Company, May, 1884 </ref>. Known for its saloons and boarding houses catering to canal men and railroaders, the area south of Downtown Newark on South Second Street was called "Gingerbread Row" for the cheap snacks sold on the street and regarded as a rough and rowdy section of town. Labeled a restaurant and saloon on the Sanborn Fire Insurance maps from 1884 and 1889, the set of buildings had a wooden theater listed on site in 1889. The building was not called a hotel on the Sanborn Fire Insurance maps until 1893 when it was erroneously called the "Garden Hotel." If the site was originally developed by David Fisher, the man who had a vision for a modern hotel at the location was Albert Seiler.

Albert Seiler, a German immigrant to the United States, came to Newark in 1873 and was involved with several businesses prior to his hotels. Seiler was the owner of the property at Franklin and South Second by 1889, when he ran it as a concert hall, undoubtedly the theater listed on the Sanborn Maps. By 1891, Seiler had adopted the name Germania Hotel for his business. He renovated the Germania just two years later in 1895, possibly in a wider effort to rehabilitate "Gingerbread Row."

Seiler decided in 1903 to tear down the Old Germania completely to build a new, modern hotel on the same spot at the corner of Second and Franklin. The new construction was designed by local architect Charles E. Moore. This time Albert Seiler would name the business after himself, the Hotel Seiler. The new hotel would be three stories of brick and stone with sleeping rooms, parlors, and sitting rooms There were 52 rooms in total: 10 rooms on the first floor, 21 on the second floor, and 22 on the third floor. The daily rate for the new hotel was $2 dollars. It was a stately structure and earned a place in Newark's Photographic History of Newark and Licking County, which touted its electric lights and use of natural gas. Each floor had bathrooms that featured both hot and cold water and the hotel possessed a large dining room and bar.

By October 1919, the Seiler Hotel had become the "Central Hotel" and would begin a long, slow decline. As the Central Hotel, the Old Germania/Seiler developed something of an unsavory reputation; in December 1922, its owner T.J. McNamara admitted to permitting prostitution to occur onsite. The hotel would continue in use until the late 1930s. The grocery store chain A. & P. purchased the building on Second street in 1940 with plans to tear down the structure and build a grocery in its place.

J.G.

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