The Palace Hotel
When M.F. Bell designed the Palace Hotel, he declared it would be one of the country’s finest hotels for a town the size of Fulton. The 50 room, three-story edifice featured a mansard roof and wrought iron balconies at the windows. Two entrance doors, one reserved for ladies only, welcomed guests. The hotel opened on August 18, 1879, the first day of the county fair, with a celebratory ball the following night.
Over the years, the Palace Hotel hosted weddings, charity events, and the first banquet of the Fulton Commercial Club (now the Kingdom of Callaway Supper). From the turn of the century into the 1930s, drummers or traveling salesmen would arrive by train and transport their wares to the hotel’s basement where they were displayed for local merchants seeking to replenish their stock. The hotel also served as media center for those reporting on Churchill’s visit to Fulton. In 1947, the space formerly reserved for the drummers became The Tap Room, a favorite hangout for Westminster students and faculty. Now owned by a Westminster graduate, the establishment’s new name, 1851, recalls the date of the college’s founding. From 1951 to 1972, local radio station KFAL broadcast from the hotel.
With more than 30 different owners, the hotel has experienced its share of highs and lows. In this week’s postcard, which probably dates back to the late 1940s or early 1950s, a 1930 Spanish style renovation masks the elegance of Bell’s original design. (We’ve posted a sketch from an early promotional brochure for comparison.) Nevertheless, for more than a century, travelers continued to patronize the Palace Hotel. A Westminster professor recounted that a rope placed near a window served as the fire escape when he stayed there during his on-campus job interview in the early 1960s. Whatever its current circumstances, some patrons remained loyal to the hotel; one young bride accompanied her husband to the Palace and lived there permanently for 60 years until ill health forced her to move to a nursing home.
In 1982, a Columbia contractor purchased the hotel, promising to restore it to its former glory as “ a place Fulton will be proud of.” Two years later, the Callaway Bank foreclosed on the property. In 1986, it was purchased by the Callaway County Commissioners who had plans to build a new county jail on that block. Because the Commissioners only intended to use the parking lot, the hotel itself was not in immediate danger of destruction. The proposal did, however, awaken many in the community to the hotel’s historical importance. In 1990, a Save the Palace Committee formed and lobbied for a renovated Palace Hotel to become the next City Hall. A newspaper ad listed the names of the campaign’s supporters along with their promise to contribute financially to the project. A model of the renovated hotel even graced the Court House grounds. Although the Palace Hotel never became Fulton’s City Hall, their efforts and those of recent owners have preserved the structure, restoring it to a building of which F. M. Bell could once again be proud.