Hotels Archives - Page 17 of 23

Collins Inn Livery Stable, Wilbraham, Mass

December 10, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The livery stable at the Collins Inn on Boston Road in North Wilbraham, around 1895. Image courtesy of the Wilbraham Public Library.

The scene in 2015:

This is the same building seen in the previous post, just from a different angle and several years later. Although the photo is undated, there is at least one clue that gives a good indication of when it was taken. Just below the large “Livery” sign, there are posters for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, which was performing in Springfield on “Thursday, May 23.” There appears to have been a performance in Springfield on that day in 1895, and it was a Thursday, so the photo was probably taken around that time.

In the days before automobiles, livery stables such as these would have provided stabling and feed for horses, and the carriages out front show a variety of horse-drawn carriages that would have been used at the time. One of the carriages has two young children sitting in it, so perhaps the man posing with the horse is about to hitch it to that carriage. He is presumably an employee of the stables, which was operated as part of the Collins Inn next to it.

At the time that the first photo was taken, cars were just starting to be developed, but within about 20 years they would essentially replace horses, putting livery stables like these out of business. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Collins Inn closed in 1915. I don’t know when the stables were demolished, but it seems fitting that the modern equivalent, a gas and repair station, now stands on the site.

Collins House and Livery Stable, Wilbraham, Mass

December 9, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The Warren Collins home and livery stables, on Boston Road in North Wilbraham, possibly around 1872. Image courtesy of the Wilbraham Public Library.

The scene in 2015:

These buildings can be seen in the distance of the c.1900 photo in the previous post, which explains the history of the Collins Inn that once stood nearby. This location was directly across the street from Wilbraham’s only railroad station, and it was from here that Warren L. Collins operated a stagecoach line to the center of town, two miles away. The livery stables in the background were probably used to house the horses for this line. Given the nature of livery stables, it probably would have also been used to care for the horses of the inn’s guests.

The one thing that is in question about this photo is the date. A copy of this image can be found online here, which is where the 1872 date comes from. However, that date might be a little too early; the 1873 atlas of Hampden County includes an inset map of North Wilbraham, which was labeled as Collins Depot. Neither of these buildings appear on the map, and a different building on the other side of the street is labeled as the livery stables. Additionally, the Collins Inn was not built until 1874, and the 1964 History of Wilbraham book suggests that Collins built this livery stable at some point after opening the inn. So, it seems more likely that the photo was taken either a little later in the decade or maybe in the 1880s.

Either way, there is not much left from the old photo. Both the stables and the small house in the foreground are gone, but the basic business model is still going on here today. Instead of feeding and caring for horses, the present-day business performs a very similar function, providing fuel and repairs for cars. There also appears to be at least one surviving element from the original photo; the building on the far left looks like it is the same one that was standing there.

Collins Inn, Wilbraham, Mass

February 11, 2016December 7, 2015 by Derek Strahan

Collins Inn at the corner of Boston Road and Chapel Street in North Wilbraham, probably in the 1890s or early 1900s. Image courtesy of the Wilbraham Public Library.

The scene in 2015:

The historic center of the town of Wilbraham has always been along Main Street in the town’s approximate geographic center. When it was first settled in the 1700s, this was the ideal place for farming, but as changes in industrialization, transportation, and communication came about in the 1800s, the village of North Wilbraham gained prominence. Its location on the banks of the Chicopee River and along the main road from Springfield to Boston made this area an important spot for industry and transportation. In 1839, the Boston & Albany Railroad opened through here, with the North Wilbraham railroad station being located right across the street from here.

The building in the foreground of the first photo was the Collins Inn, which was opened in 1874 by Warren L. Collins. It sat directly across Boston Road from the railroad station, and across Chapel Street from the Hollister Block, which at the time was used as a drugstore and post office. In addition to the inn, Collins also operated a livery stable on the site, and ran a stagecoach line from here to the center of Wilbraham, about two miles away.

Aside from transportation, though, the Collins inn also offered Wilbraham another connection to the outside world – the telephone. The telephone was invented in 1876, and within just four years a line was established from here to the center Wilbraham, at a cost of $30 per year for subscribers. However, a few years later the cost increased to $100 per year (equivalent to over $2,400 today), and the service was discontinued because of a lack of families willing to pay. When phone service was re-established in 1904, the Collins Inn became the town’s telephone exchange office for the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company, serving 21 customers in Wilbraham.

The telephone exchange remained here until 1914, when it moved to a different building across the street. Around the same time, the Collins Inn closed, although the building itself remained standing for some time. The 1964 History of Wilbraham book indicates that it was still standing at the time, although today its former location is now a parking lot.

Kenmore Square, Boston

October 29, 2015 by Derek Strahan

Facing east in Kenmore Square, with Beacon Street to the left and Commonwealth Avenue to the right, on November 14, 1911. Image courtesy of the City of Boston Archives.

Kenmore Square in 2015:

The area that makes up Kenmore Square today was originally Sewall’s Point, on the edge of a large tidal marsh along the Charles River. These photos were taken right about where the shoreline once was when European settlers first arrived in 1630, and there was no dry land from here until Boston Common, around a mile and a half away. This “back bay” of Boston remained relatively unchanged for nearly 200 years, and the site of Kenmore Square, which technically wasn’t even part of Boston at the time, remained undeveloped.

Things started to change in 1821, when the Mill Dam was built across the Back Bay from here to Boston Common. The idea was to use the tide to power factories in the area, and although that aspect of it was a failure, the dam was also used as a toll road. Later in the 19th century, when the Back Bay was filled in, the road on the old dam became Beacon Street. The original dam was never actually dismantled, so the wooden structure is still buried under the road today.

Once the landfill projects were completed around 1900, this area became the intersection of three major roads: Beacon Street, Commonwealth Avenue, and Brookline Avenue. The houses along Commonwealth Avenue were primarily built in the 1890s, and within the next few decades larger commercial buildings opened here. The first was the 1897 Hotel Buckminster, which is located just behind where these photos were taken.

In the past century, Kenmore Square has not undergone drastic changes. Many of the houses along Commonwealth Avenue are still standing, as are some of the commercial buildings to the left. Today, the square is probably best known for its association with the Boston Red Sox. Fenway Park, which was under construction when the first photo was taken, is less than 300 yards to the right along Brookline Avenue, and the large Citgo sign that is prominently visible from the park is just out of view to the left, on top of Barnes & Noble building on the far left.

Hotel Somerset, Boston

October 27, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The Hotel Somerset at the corner of Commonwealth Avenue and Charlesgate East in Boston, around 1910-1920. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The building in 2015:

When this historic building was completed in 1897, it was at the very edge of the city. There were parts of Boston further west of here, such as today’s Fenway/Kenmore neighborhood, but at that point there was very little development going on. Even the 1898 city atlas didn’t cover further west of here, and it shows that many of the building lots around the hotel were still vacant.

Although the Hotel Somerset was initially surrounded by vacant lots, the city soon grew up around it, as the first photo shows. It was a prominent city hotel, with notable guests such as The Beatles, who stayed here during their visit to Boston in 1966, as well as visiting baseball teams, since Fenway Park is just a quarter mile away. Ted Williams also stayed here during the baseball season, renting Room 231 for many years.

In the century since the first photo was taken, many of the surroundings have changed. The Massachusetts Turnpike passes within 50 feet of the building on the other side, and on this side an elevated roadway crosses Commonwealth Avenue, with an off-ramp on the right side of the photo in front of the building. The hotel itself was converted to condominiums in the 1980s, but from the outside it still doesn’t look much different from the first photo.

Hotel Bristol, Boston

September 27, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The Hotel Bristol on Boylston Street, just west of Clarendon Street, on October 4, 1912. Image courtesy of the City of Boston Archives.

The scene in 2015:

The Hotel Bristol was built at the corner of Boylston and Clarendon Streets sometime in the 1870s, probably soon after the land was filled in as part of the massive Back Bay landfill project. I couldn’t find too much information on the hotel, and it does not appear to have been one of the city’s top hotels. It was probably more of a residential hotel, catering to long-term occupants as opposed to temporary visitors. In the 1912 photo, there were also several businesses on the ground floor, including an auto supply company on the left and a drugstore, T. Metcalf Co., to the right. Barely visible on the extreme right is the Walker Memorial Building, part of the original Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus before the school moved across the river to Cambridge. That building was demolished in 1939, but I don’t know how long the Hotel Bristol survived. It was still listed on the 1938 city atlas, but today the site is occupied by a modern office building.