Snapshot of History
PROTECTED CONTENT
If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above.
Username and Password Help
Please enter your email and we will send you a password reset link.
German House hotel in Mount Ayr in 1896.
BY MIKE AVITT
This hotel was located at 202 N. Taylor and was the second most successful hotel in Mount Ayr’s history, behind the Mount Ayr Hotel. Other hotels in the early days included the Williams Hotel, 107 E. Adams; the Ellis Hotel, 109 E. Madison; Commercial Hotel, 206 N. Taylor; and the Crawford Hotel, 104 N. Taylor. Most of these burned.
A newspaper blurb in September 1888 tells us John German turned the hotel over to George German. In March 1895, we are told John German had resumed control of the German House. In the summer of 1899, an addition was built giving the hotel a larger dining room with added sleeping rooms upstairs.
John German sold the German House to W. H. Stiles in August 1902. Stiles then leased the hotel to S. A. Smith in April 1903. Smith provided lunch for 180 people during the Fourth of July celebration in 1903. Stiles lost the hotel to the Mt. Ayr Bank in November 1903 and the bank sold it to G. W. Harmon in February 1904.
Mr. and Mrs. Rol Shroyer were running the hotel in 1906 but Mr. Harmon sold the hotel to J. H. Crowell in 1907.
Noah Reynolds bought the hotel in 1910, but E. C. Blauer was the owner in 1914. In February 1914, Blaurer rented the entire hotel to Dr. J. R. Gilmour for use as a sanitarium. The doctor didn’t last, because Mrs. F. M. Cropper rented the hotel in August 1914.
Mr. and Mrs. J. N. Dalton rented the old German House in 1916 and they would need it badly in January 1920. The Daltons were managers of the Mount Ayr Hotel as well as the German House when fire badly damaged the Mt. Ayr Hotel. Guests displaced from the Mt. Ayr Hotel, were put up at the German House. The Mt. Ayr Hotel was condemned in February 1922.
In June 1923, T. J. Harden bought the German House. In December 1925, Nate Lamb bought the hotel and named it Lamb’s Hotel. An advertisement in the June 30, 1926 Mount Ayr Record-News says, “Lamb’s Hotel, 45 cents, All You Can Eat.”
I lost track of the hotel after this but I think the building lasted into the 1950s as many people remember the old hotel. Nate Lamb, jr. told me he was the last owner.
The Mount Ayr Hotel re-opened in 1924 after much remodeling and stayed open until 1985. The Clinton Motel opened in 1950 and closed in 2005. The Mount Ayr Inn & Suites opened in 2005.
