Radisson Hotels

In 1907, Edna Dickerson came to Minneapolis, Minnesota from Chicago, to collect a substantial inheritance.[1][2] Local business leaders persuaded her to build a hotel in the city, with Dickerson investing $1.5 million in the construction of the first Radisson hotel.[1][3] It was planned as a high-end luxury hotel, designed in the French Renaissance architecture style,[4] and constructed with "the best in every line" of paints, enamels, woodwork, and wood finishes,[5] and named after the 17th-century French explorer, ranger and furrier Pierre-Esprit Radisson.[6] The building was sixteen stories, making it the second-tallest building in Minneapolis at the time.[1] As the opening neared, reports boasted of hand-carved walnut furnishings in guest rooms and Spanish leather chairs in the main lobby and banquet hall.[7] The hotel opened on Wednesday, December 15, 1909, with many of the staff having been hired from large hotels on the Eastern seaboard, and being new to the city of Minneapolis.[3] The opening was followed shortly thereafter by a charity ball for the city being held at the hotel.[8] In an early hotel incident the following month, six waiters from New York were fired, allegedly "because the Eastern waiters could not get accustomed to the Western ways", with three of them being thrown out "into the street before they would leave".[9]

Dickerson and her husband, attorney Simon Kruse, lived on the hotel's thirteenth floor and managed the hotel, also opening a Radisson Inn on Christmas Lake, in the Minneapolis suburb of Excelsior.[2] They remained for twenty-five years, until 1934, when the Radisson fell into the hands of a mortgage company.[1] In the mid- and late-1940s, pianist Liberace "gained national exposure through his performance contracts with the Statler and Radisson" hotels.[10] Another owner initiated a renovation of the hotel in the late 1940s.[1] The Radisson was purchased in 1962 by the Carlson Company, and began adding new locations, both through the purchase of existing hotels such as the Denver Hyatt House in 1968,[11] and constructing new buildings in Bloomington, Minnesota, and Duluth, Minnesota.[12] The chain had 14 locations by 1976, and 32 by 1984.[13] The original Radisson in Minneapolis was demolished in 1982, with a new hotel being constructed in that city and beginning operations in 1987.[1] Carlson expanded the chain into one of the top hotel corporations by 2013. On top of Radisson, Carlson also owned several other brands, such as Park Inn, Park Plaza (acquired in 2000), and Country Inns & Suites (founded by Carlson in 1986).[14]

Radisson Rewards logo

Radisson Rewards is a loyalty program launched by Radisson Hotels in 1999.[26] It allows people to obtain and redeem points for things such as free nights at various Radisson Hotel properties.[25]

• Glasgow hotel stabbings, a knife attack that took place at a Park Inn location in Glasgow
• Meridian Gate, Cardiff, a skyscraper owned and occupied by Radisson Blu
• Tour du Crédit Lyonnais, a tall skyscraper partly occupied by Radisson Blu

Media related to Radisson Hotels & Resorts at Wikimedia Commons

• Official website