Cowlitz County WA Archives Biographies.....Boice, David Harvey December 27, 1881 - 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Ila L. Wakley iwakley@msn.com  May 19, 2009, 5:06 pm

Author: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company

     DAVID HARVEY BOICE, manager of the Hotel Monticello at Longview, 
Washington, has had many years of practical experience in the hotel business 
and by nature and training is well equipped for this position. The Monticello 
under his management is enjoying a reputation second to no other hotel on the 
coast for the splendid service which it renders to the public.

     Mr. Boice was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, on the 27th of December, 1881, a 
son of Joseph C. W. and Fanny (Smith) Boice. His father, who was a native of 
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, died in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1918, at the age 
of about seventy-five years. He was a veteran of the Civil war, in which he 
served from 1861 to 1865 as a member of Company H, Fifty-ninth Indiana 
Volunteer Infantry, of which he was drum major. Later he was active in the 
Grand Army of the Republic and was a life member of the Masonic order. His 
ancestors were of Scotch-Irish stock and came from the north of Ireland to 
this country in colonial days, settling first in New England but later moving 
to Pennsylvania. Fanny (Smith) Boice was born at Hannibal, Missouri, and died 
at Hermosa Beach, California, in 1924 at the age of sixty-six years. She was a 
descendant of Daniel Boone, the noted Kentucky pioneer and frontiersman.

     David H. Boice received his education in the public and high schools of 
Lincoln, Nebraska, and, going to Kansas City, Missouri, became identified with 
the coal business as a salesman for the Hawkeye Coal Company. Later he was for 
three years with the Kansas City Belt Railway, after which he went to 
California and began his hotel career. In 1901 he became connected with Hotel 
Green at Pasadena, starting at the bottom, and during the eighteen years that 
he was with that house he was promoted through the various positions to that 
of manager. From there, in 1919, he went to the Alexandria Hotel at Los 
Angeles as assistant manager and two years later was made manager of the 
Ambassador Hotel, formerly the Potter, at Santa Barbara. He remained there 
until the hotel was burned in 1921, when he became manager of the Ambassador 
Hotel at Los Angeles, where he remained until coming to Longview as manager of 
its beautiful, modern hotel, the Monticello, which was the first building 
erected in the city. The hotel was named after a nearby spot so named by Lewis 
and Clark in honor of Thomas Jefferson, whose Virginia home was called 
Monticello. At Monticello, Washington, an historic territorial conference was 
held and a small settlement sprang up, but it was later ravaged by water and 
was eventually abandoned. When Mr. Boice first came to Longview the permanent 
inhabitants of the place were a few farmers and fishermen, though the 
construction crew was already at work on the hotel, from which time the new 
community rapidly developed, so that in five years Mr. Boice has seen Longview 
grow from practically nothing to a beautiful, well improved and prosperous 
city of twelve thousand population.

     The Monticello is a six-story, fire-proof building and contains two 
hundred guest rooms, each with a bath. It fronts on beautiful Jefferson 
square, a six-acre park of gorgeous beauty, in which band concerts are given 
on Sunday afternoons, and special concerts by the Hotel Monticello orchestra 
in the evening. The hotel lobby is the equal of any in cities ten times the 
size of Longview, while all of the rooms are well furnished and have all 
modern conveniences. The hotel cuisine is all that could be desired by anyone, 
and the service is prompt and adequate. One of the distinctive decorative 
features of the Monticello is the group of forty-six portraits and paintings,  
depicting scenes in the winning of the west, by Joe Knowles, the noted artist, 
and which form a frieze on the walls of the lobby. These paintings were 
unveiled August 5, 1925, at the organization of the Cowlitz County Pioneer and 
Historical Society in Longview. They have been arranged to give a continuous 
story of the conquering of the Pacific northwest, and are portraits of Balboa, 
Sir Francis Drake, Robert Gray, President Thomas Jefferson, William Clark, 
Meriwether Lewis, Sacajawea, John Jacob Astor, Dr. John McLoughlin, and Chief 
Joseph of the Nez Perce Indian tribe, and scenes of Indian Camp, Indian Legend 
of the Coming of the First White Man, A Surf Scene, Balboa's Fleet, Drake's 
Ship, "The Golden Hind," Gray's Ship, "The Columbia," Indians Canoeing on the 
Columbia River, Lewis and Clark Expedition Crossing Bitter Root Mountain, The 
Peace Signs, Head Waters of the Columbia, The Singing Voyagers, A Bit of Sea 
Coast, Wreck of the Ship "Peacock," A Mountain Landscape, The Wagon Train, A 
Desert Scene, Buffalo at the Water Hole, The Vanishing Herd (elk and 
reindeer), The Hungry Wolf, The Whitman Party Rafting Down the Columbia River, 
Turning the First Furrow, The Indian's Cattle (herd of buffalo in the valley), 
Indian Cattle Rustlers, The Desert Water Hole, Pioneer Logging, The Cowboy, 
The Thorobrace Coach, The Miner (prospector), Attack on Fort Sheridan, The 
Waterfall, Scout Pearson, The Forest, The Appeal to the Great Spirit, The Call 
of the Wild, The Departing Red Man, and Night (Indians and their wigwams).

     On April 21, 1904, in Pasadena, California, Mr. Boice was united in 
marriage to Miss Mary Roth, who was born at Rosedale, Kansas, in April, 1881, 
and is a daughter of Bernard and Helena Roth, both of whom were natives of 
Germany. Her father was for many years a building contractor in Rosedale, 
Kansas, being one of the pioneers of that section, and there both parents 
died. Mrs. Boice is a high school graduate and is an enthusiastic golf player.

     Mr. Boice gives his political support to the republican party and is a 
member of the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks; the Longview Country Club, 
of which he was a director; the Chamber of Commerce, of which he was president 
two years; and the Southwestern Washington Hotel Men's Association, of which 
he was president for two years. He and his wife are identified with the 
Community church. Mr. Boice has shown a splendid interest in everything 
pertaining to the prosperity and advancement of Longview, and his fine 
personal qualities and cordial and affable manner have gained for him a high 
place in the esteem of all who have come in contact with him.

Additional Comments:
History of the Columbia River Valley From The Dalles to the Sea, Vol. II, 
Pages 734-735

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