Nathan Hale Hotel by Pete Zizka and Tom Beardsley 5-20-2023

In January, 1957, the shareholders of The Community Hotel Corp. were told that 1956 was a successful year insofar as it was the first year in its 31 year history that a profit was realized and a dividend declared for its shareholders. So, what was the Community Hotel Corp.? In 1925, local businessmen formed a group and added a “citizen’s organization” to consider building a new hotel in Willimantic. An executive committee was formed and soon a fundraising plan was formulated. Four divisions of fundraisers, each led by a prominent citizen, were formed “and a complete coaching talk” which included all the details necessary to sell stock was given to all the solicitors. (This week’s photo features the fundraising group) The site for the new hotel had not yet been chosen although several were being considered including the site of the Johnson House Hotel which was eventually chosen. The weeklong campaign was successful in that it raised $225,000 of a $276,000 goal.    In March, the certificate of incorporation of “The Community Hotel Corporation of Willimantic” was filed. The incorporators were businessmen William Jordan, James Fullerton, George Elliott and James Bath and Coventry manufacturer Louis Kingsbury. The new hotel was opened on September 15, 1926. When completed, the hotel covered the site of the Johnson House and other buildings that had been part of the Young estate. The new Nathan Hale Hotel had 100 guest rooms, each designed in a colonial Adam style, with curtains made of printed mohair.  The hotel’s lobby was 50 feet long and 19 feet wide and had a beautiful terrazzo floor ~ a mosaic design consisting of highly polished pieces of marble or granite.  The new hostelry was furnished throughout with colonial Chippendale furniture, oriental porcelains, rugs, sofas and ladderback chairs. The walls painted in a soft golden, two- toned yellow, and the lobby led the expansive, rnain dining room, 54 by 21 feet, which had an ornate, central skylight. It too was painted in golden tones, and the draped mirrors were fixed to the walls, to give an effect of windows. Daniel Daley of New York, who had 20 years of hotel management experience, was hired as resident manager.  The Nathan Hale Hotel's official opening took place with much pomp on September 22, 1926. The WCHC’s senior officers, including William P. Jordan, James P. Bath, John Ahem, George S. Elliott, James B.  Fullerton, Pierre. J. Laramee, and Leslie Hanson were treated to a sumptuous banquet-in the hotel dining room the following evening. Theresa Sprague, a well-known opera singer from Boston, as engaged to perform a number of stirring, patriotic songs to entertain the guests. After dinner speakers made many civic speeches, and the hotel’s “father” and leading proponent, William P. Jordan, proclaimed that tourists coming over the Boston and New York roads were bound to be impressed by the dignity of Willimantic’s new hotel. Moreover, the city’s great manufacturing plants had long attracted the world to the “Thread City," and now it no longer had to turn them away. By the end of 1926, however, about 100 subscribers to the company’s stock failed to make their payments and so civil suits were filed against them. Some had made partial payments but the final payment had come due in July. Subsequent newspaper articles documented the court cases and most were decided in favor of the corporation. For the next ten years, the annual deficits ran from $14. to $10,000. Still, in 1937 there was optimism about future business. But it wasn’t for another twenty years that any of the stockholders were given a dividend. For a few years, the hotel operated at a profit and in 1960, several major improvements were planned. Then, substantial losses were felt in 1964 and 1965 and plans were made to sell the hotel. On September 12, 1966, the hotel’s directors made the decision to accept bids for purchase of the hotel. At the same time, negotiations had been occurring with officials of what is now ECSU for a leasing arrangement for coeds. Only one bid was received and it came in 5 minutes after the bidding deadline. The deadline was then extended for several days. On October 7, 1966, it was announced that Benjamin Hochberg of Columbia would be the new owner. Two years later, Hochberg sold it to the State.

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