Prohibition in Glens Falls — Some hotels close, other reinvent

This is the latest in a series of posts about the Prohibition era in the Glens Falls area.

William R. Clark advertised his Clark House Hotel building on Maple Street in Glens Falls for sale in July 1919, and prepared to close at the end of the summer.

“The hotel was erected in 1886 and has since that time enjoyed a good business but the near approach of national prohibition has convinced the owner that the hotel business is doomed,” The Post-Star reported on July 14, 1919.

In Hudson Falls, the King Hotel closed, due to Prohibition, making the fourth hotel in the village that had closed in recent months, The Post-Star reported on July 18, 1919.

In February 1920 there were two hotels left in Hudson Falls: Hotel Cunningham and People’s Hotel.

Renovation under way at People’s Hotel included a new dining room and painting and papering throughout.

“Manager Newman, with the enforcement of the eighteenth amendment in effect, decided to conduct a hotel that will appeal to the traveling as well as the local trade,” The Post-Star reported on Feb. 13, 1920. “The need for first class quarters for hotel purposes was never more urgent.”

The Post-Star reported on Feb. 16 that the block of Hudson Falls that included Hotel Cunningham had been sold in “the largest real estate transactions to take place in Hudson Falls in years.”

The new owners, who paid “well up in five figures,” planned extensive renovation of the hotel.

“The new owners at first considered remodeling the hotel for mercantile purposes, but abandoned the plan after reaching the conclusion that this progressive town should not be without a hotel of the class of Hotel Cunningham,” The Post-Star reported.

Other hotel operators, too, were investing in their properties to redirect their focus away from alcoholic beverages.

David Fitzgerald, owner of Fitzgerald’s Hotel, a favorite stop of Gov. Al Smith when he visited Glens Falls, turned his cafe rooms into a delicatessen and grocery counter.

“Soft drinks of all kinds will also be served,” The Post-Star reported on Jan. 17, 1920. “So Bradley, the clever manipulator of alcoholic beverages of olden days, will be one of the chief clerks of the grocery counter, and instead of drawing his ‘stock’ as in days gone by, will be the chief mixer of the ice cream soda emporium.”

The Rockwell House hotel in Glens Falls was renovated to focus on a more upscale customer base.

“A new era, so far as hotel life in Glens Falls is concerned, will be ushered in tomorrow evening with the formal opening of the new Rockwell House,” The Post-Star reported on Jan. 14, 1920.

Click here to read the most recent previous post in the series.