San Luis Obispo County CA Archives Photo Place.....Paso Robles Hotel 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com November 23, 2006, 10:15 pm

Source:             Discovering San Luis Obispo County
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http://www.usgwarchives.net/ca/sanluisobispo/photos/pasorobl47gph.jpg
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PASO ROBLES HOTEL

History and Description:

In July, 1857, Daniel D. and James M. Blackburn and Lazare Godchaux bought the
25,993 acres of the Paso de Robles Rancho for $8,000.  They developed a
successful resort hotel in this wilderness area based on the hot springs pool. 
The hotel could be reached by stage coach or cruiser.  By 1883, the El Paso de
Robles Hotel and Hot Springs had developed into a privately-owned village with
the resort hotel at its center. When the Southern Pacific Railroad finally was a
complete line from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 1886, the people decided to
incorporate the town and in the same year plans for a new hotel were announced.
This new hotel, designed by Stanford White, was completed in 1891, with a final
building cost of $160,000. It prospered until 1941 when it burned to the ground.
The land was sold and resold to owners who had the present hotel built along
with the Del Monte Hotel in Monterey and the Del Coronado in San Diego. The Paso
Robles Inn is presently owned by Mr. and Mrs. L. H. Chandler.

The first hotel (Paso Robles Hot Springs Hotel) was a two-story wooden hotel and
a one-story building used partially as the overland stage stop.  The hotel was
surrounded by small wooden cottages on three sides for some of the guests.  It
had two dining rooms, a store, billiard saloon, express, telegraph and post
office, with the mud baths a little distance from the resort complex.  The new
hotel was three stories high with 285 feet of frontage. The building was
constructed of solid masonry with beautiful sandstone arches. The Tribune said
it was "absolutely fireproof". There were circular towers on the north and south
wings, a solarium in the large square tower in the center of the building, and a
16 foot wide veranda that ran around three sides of the hotel.  The main
entrance led into a large lobby surrounded by parlors, billiard rooms, reading
rooms, club meeting rooms, a saloon and a barber shop. The present hotel is
built with bricks from the second hotel after it burned. Across the street is
the park donated by the Blackburns in 1886.

Sources:
La Vista. Volume I, Issue 4, San Luis Obispo County
Historical Society
Mr. Moon, Hotel manager


Additional Comments:
Extracted from

Discovering San Luis Obispo County
by
Carleton M. Winslow

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ca/sanluisobispo/photos/pasorobl47gph.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/cafiles/

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