This month, a public institution we call the "hotel" is 200 years old.
Officially, no one is celebrating, but as a social milestone, the hotel has been a remarkable advancement for civilization, ranking right up there with with tubeless tires and drive-through fast-food lanes for travelers wanting trouble-free, efficient journeys.It's such a simple thing now - in this bicentennial year of hoteling. At the end of the day, we sign a paper, are given a key for a room that's climate-controlled, has a comfortable bed, a television, a telephone, hot water, a shower or tub (usually both), a bar or two of perfumed soap and a tiny bottle of shampoo. A good night's rest follows.
Traveling has not always been this easy.
In the fall of 1794, the City Hotel opened in New York on lower Broadway, just beyond Wall Street. It was huge, with 73 rooms, and the first structure ever built exclusively as a hotel. Immediately, the City Hotel became a popular gathering place, as hotels do in all small cities (New York's population then was only 30,000). George Washington held a birthday dinner there in 1798. In 1820, there was a party celebrating the arrival in America of Pilgrims 200 years earlier - as we learned from the Embassy Suites chain, which remembered the bicentennial and researched the history of hotels in America.
Before the City Hotel, America had inns, which were just places to spend the night. Mostly they were connected with stores or taverns, or they were rooms at stagecoach stops, or in homes.
And none was private. Rent a bed and probably it had to be shared with a stranger.
"When a guest retired for the night, he did not know whom he might find beside him in the morning," said one historian.
Frequently, another source says, three or four travelers slept in one large bed, "spoon-fashion." Sometimes, women were put in with the men, and for that reason, most travelers slept fully dressed.
The inn system was in place for thousands of years before the City Hotel was built, and travelers expected little more.
By the 13th century in Europe, inns were everywhere, mostly serving travelers on pilgrimages to the Holy Land. The still-existing Saracen's Head Inn at Southwell, England, was named by Crusaders preparing to cross the channel to France.
In France, there were inns like the Lion and the Eagle. Spain had its Three Columns Inn. The northern Italian city of Bressanone had an inn called At The Elephant, and the attraction there was a live elephant.
By the middle of the 14th century, travelers were praising German inn beds because they were large and "without fleas or bedbugs."
In America, inns were commonly built with a ground floor for food and drink. Sleeping areas were in a loft. Up there was nothing but a series of beds. And you slept with strangers.
All of that ended 165 years ago - Oct. 16, 1829 - when the Tremont House opened in Boston. It was a revelation. There were 170 rooms. Each room had its own key. You could rent it alone, had to share it with no one. There was a washbowl, a pitcher, a "free" cake of soap, gaslights and "a fine supply of running water in the eight bathing rooms in the basement."
For a night alone in such splendor, a traveler paid $2, and that included four meals (the extra meal was a late afternoon snack).
And so America invented the Holiday Inn. And the Hilton. And Statler. And Motel 6.
After Tremont House, the idea of hotels caught on rather quickly and spread wherever the railroads went. Usually, a new hotel was waiting when the first train brought travelers to town.
And then came the automobile. As quickly as primitive roads could be built Americans began traveling, and as there were few inns and hotels, mostly they camped beside the road. Then a Wisconsin town got the bright idea of devoting a few acres of space to a "public campground." It charged a fee for overnight camping.
By 1913, crude shacks were built, called "cabin camps." The first was in Douglas, Ariz. They were little more than empty rooms, but they were a step up from camping. A few were called "bungalettes." After that, it was tourist camps and tourist cabins, and finally the Motel Inn at San Luis Obispo, Calif., was the first "motel."
And the rest is history.
So goes hotel life on the American road, now 200 years old and growing. It can only get better. First thing you know, front-desk clerks will learn how to smile.
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
For the record: hotel `firsts'
As compiled by Embassy Suites, here are some hotel firsts:
- The Tremont House was the first hotel to offer room service (1829).
- The New York Hotel was the first to offer a few rooms with private baths (1844).
- The Women's Hotel in New York was the first to cater strictly to women (1878); rates were $7-$12 weekly, including meals.
- First hotel electric lights were in the Prospect House of Blue Mountain Lake, N.Y.
- A bath in every room was first offered by the Statler Hotel in Buffalo, N.Y. (1907); it advertised "A room and a bath for a dollar-and-a-half."
- Gideon Bibles were first placed in rooms of the Superior Hotel in Iron Mountain, Mont. (1908).
- Radios first were in every room of the Statler Hotel of Boston - headsets were furnished (1927).
- New York's Roosevelt Hotel first placed television sets in each room (1947).