hotel closed

 

If you are seeking lodging in Clarendon, don't plan on the downtown hotel.  The sign in the alley tells you it is closed -- if the open air windows weren't a clue. In the 1880s the Panhandle had cattle and cowboys but few towns.  Clarendon was originally established as a town where cowboys could "dry out.  Methodist minister Lewis Carhart envisioned Clarendon as a "sobriety settlement" and named it after his wife Clara. If you had stayed here then the "no liquor-no gambling" rule was in effect. For over 100 years Clarendon was dry but a recent election approved liquor sales, despite some opposition.  So today you could buy a beer and enjoy it at the "It'll DO Motel."

 

Clarendon, Texas

2.21.2014

700 cotton street

 



There's not much history on the Arlington Hotel -- also known as the Martin.  Built somewhere around the early 1900s, the story has it that  the hotel faced closing before ever opening after an unscrupulous contractor took money without completing the work.  A local oil discovery  that attracted hundreds of workers looking for lodging saved the day.  The building is in dire need of another economic upturn--which would also help most of downtown and the historic district.

Arlington Hotel
Shreveport, Louisiana
3.4.2013