A Woman in Her Place - Jeanne Goetzinger Info

When Jeanne Goetzinger came back home to Chadron to help her mother run the Olde Main Street Inn at Chadron's historic Frontier Hotel, she knew she was taking on a tradition that dated back well over a hundred years. The history of the old hotel is rich in the tradition of the American West. Jeanne sat back and told us some of the history surrounding this legendary Nebraska landmark.

[Goetzinger] "The hotel was built by Peter and Margaret O'Hanlon in 1890. The Chadron House was built originally and it burned down on this spot and then they rebuilt with brick. They lived here with their five children. Their first grandchild was born in the hotel. They were here for eleven years.

"It was opened with a social ball on August 8th in 1890. And in late December of 1890 General Nelson Miles took headquarters here during the Wounded Knee incident. The family was very proud of that. The grandson has been to visit us and brought us wonderful family photos so we could see what the family looked like in 1890.

"They then sold the hotel and moved to Riverside, California. The hotel was vacant for probably a year or two and then the railroad picked it up and it became the railroad YMCA. At that point it housed rail crews and what is our dining room became the gymnasium. They had a basketball court down there, a very small swimming pool (it would have been like a plunge); it had a bowling alley, lighted croquet courts outside, showers. Our kitchen was the shower area. They had a sixteen-station telegraphy school above the basketball court area.

"One of the most important things about the building in the early 1900s they were looking to open another college. And as they were looking around the western part of Nebraska they were considering Chadron and one of the factors in locating the college here was the fact that there was already a fine Christian Athletic facility in place. And they could utilize that until they were able to build their own facility at the college.

"The railroad YMCA was here until about 1930. At that point it went into foreclosure and it was picked up by the Ford family and it then became the Commercial Hotel. Our big window wasn't in here when the hotel was originally built and the Ford family put that window in. They operated the hotel for the traveling salesmen, that's why they called it the Commercial Hotel then. They operated that for twenty years and when they sold it.

"It sold off to the Glover family. There'd never been a bar in the hotel 'til that point and they moved the bar in and it came from a bar down the street on the corner. It was a horseshoe bar and it's a cherry bar underneath all the lamination and one day we'll get that taken of.

"And the Glover's had it for a few years and then it went on to the Norman family and became the Hub Hotel. And then my mother picked it up in 1969 and at that point it was in very bad repair and probably had it continued would have hit the wrecker's ball and become a parking lot much as the Gate City did in Crawford.

"So when mother picked it up she modernized it. She put up paneling and laid down carpeting and created the Cave, which is now our dining room. It was dirt floor and feedsacks and lumber at that point and Mom got that all hauled out and they laid concrete -- brought in all the rock from Hill City to build the fireplace. When they poured the concrete mother didn't know there was a well down there and they put all the junk down in the well and then they concreted over it. And [when] she found out she made them get out the jackhammers and they re-opened the well.

"Don Roy Littlespottedhorse was home from the service at that point and they ran a sump pump for two weeks. Mom said they almost flooded downtown Chadron and lowered him with a bucket and he cleaned out the well -- all the junk. Found a lot of antique bottles and some plates that had been thrown down in there, and it's too bad they were broken you know. But we now have the fountain in there and you can view that.

"And mother's had it since 1969, so...the hotel has owned our family for 33 years now. It's been wonderful."