Deshler Hotel

The Deshler Hotel, also known as the Deshler-Wallick Hotel, was a hotel building in Downtown Columbus, Ohio. The hotel was located at Broad and High Streets, the city's 100 percent corner.

Deshler Hotel
The Deshler beside the LeVeque Tower,
c. 1930-45
Site of the hotel
Alternative namesDeshler-Wallick, Deshler Hilton, Deshler-Cole, Deshler-Beasley
General information
Town or city9 N. High St., Columbus, Ohio
Coordinates39°57′44″N 83°00′04″W
OpenedAugust 23, 1916
ClosedJuly 31, 1968
Demolished1969
Design and construction
ArchitectHolabird & Roche

Announced in 1912 and opened in 1916, the hotel originally had 400 rooms, intended to rival the other luxury hotels of the world.[1]:38 The hotel was later leased by Lew and Adrian Wallick, hoteliers from Ohio and New York. Called the Deshler-Wallick Hotel by the time the LeVeque Tower opened, its then-1,000 rooms were accessible by a "venetian bridge" linking the two buildings on the second floor. New York Mayor Jimmy Walker, who attended the opening, tried and nearly succeeded in having a ceremonial sip of wine in each of the 600 hotel rooms. The hotel would later host President Harry S. Truman in 1946 during a meeting of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ. He and Bess Truman would later stay at the hotel again in 1953.[1]:39 In 1947 the hotel sold to Julius Epstein of Chicago, apparently for $2 million,[2]:116 who again sold it five years later to the Hilton Hotels chain, which renamed the hotel the Deshler-Hilton. In 1964 it was sold to a company owned by Charles Cole who renamed it the Deshler-Cole. Cole eliminated the 600 rooms located inside LeVeque Tower and invested $2 million to remodel the hotel. The hotel rooms in the building's wings having been eliminated, the "venetian bridge" was demolished.[2]:117 The building was sold a final time to Fred Beasley in 1966 and renamed the Deshler-Beasley before being closed in 1968 and demolished by S.G. Loewendick & Sons in 1969.[1]:39[3][4] Today the site is the home of One Columbus Center, a tower developed in part by LeVeque Enterprises.[5]

References
  1. Hunter, Bob (2012), A Historical Guidebook to Old Columbus: Finding the Past in the Present in Ohio's Capital City, Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, ISBN 978-0821420126
  2. Betti, Tom; Uhas Sauer, Doreen (2015), Historic Hotels of Columbus, Ohio, Charleston, South Carolina: The History Press, ISBN 978-1540213235
  3. Betti & Uhas Sauer 2015, p. 119-120.
  4. Foster, Emily (Mar 4, 2019) [First published November 1988]. "From the Archives: Columbus' First Family of Destruction". Columbus Monthly. Retrieved May 7, 2020.
  5. Lovelace, Craig (2012-11-02). "Shaping Columbus: Katherine LeVeque". Columbus Business First. Columbus, Ohio. Retrieved 2018-02-07.
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