The Hotel Lowrey building, located at 301 Dewey Avenue, in Poteau, LeFlore County, Oklahoma, on the town’s main commercial thoroughfare, is locally significant in the area of Commerce in Poteau for the period of significance beginning in 1922 and ending in 1965, the date at which the hotel closed and the activities shifted to college housing.
The building was originally constructed in 1922-23 with Classical Revival detailing. It was Poteau’s largest commercial office and retail building, and it remains the town’s largest of that style. In 1931-32 additional Classical Revival details were added, exterior window upgrades were made, and the interior was slightly reconfigured, so that the building became a combined hotel and office building. It represents the town’s business and commercial development during the 1920s and 1930s, as part of a national pattern of town boosterism by typical local entrepreneurs during an era of economic expansion and population mobility. The setting remains similar to that of the era of construction, with smaller 1920s-era Classical Revival and Commercial style buildings The Hotel Lowrey building retains sufficient integrity of location, setting, design, materials, and workmanship, as well as the feeling and association of a vital part of a downtown commercial district, and it is nominated for listing in the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion a within a context of local Commerce.
The Hotel Lowrey was erected in 1922-23 in Poteau, LeFlore County, Oklahoma. The building began its existence as the Lowrey Building, a fully commercial property to offices and retail, and was converted into a hotel-commercial combination in 1931-32. It is locally significant under Criterion A, as part of an important pattern in the development of Commerce in a small-town business districts across the United States and within that context, within the entrepreneurial pattern of hotel development, for the period of significance 1922-1964. Created as an office and retail building, it was centrally located in the commercial district on the town’s main street and between two railroad lines/depots, and it catered to both professional and retail ventures, designed to draw in a variety of users and their customers. Repurposed in 1932 as a hotel, it was a typical “Main Street hotel” of the second, third, and fourth decades of the twentieth century. the beginning of the automobile age. Both office building and hotel were projects of the building’s owner, a typical local entrepreneur (rather than as a community effort or by a hotel chain corporation).
In eastern Oklahoma, Poteau, Oklahoma, was a small regional agricultural center in the first decades of the twentieth century. Only a few years after 1907 statehood, the primarily agricultural area diversified, adding petroleum speculation, investment, drilling, and production. Poteau, a town of perhaps 2,000 by 1910, was poised to benefit from the nearby discovery of a large gas and oil field developed in between 1905 and 1912. At the time of the “boom,” the town prospered in a small business district flanked by two railroad lines, those being the St. Louis and San Francisco (SLSF), on the west, and the Kansas City Southern (KCS,) on the east. They served a large lumber company, a handle-making plant, a brick-making plant, a bottling works, and a small manufacturing plant as well as the customary local retail businesses. Representatives from eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas wholesale businesses came to Poteau to buy and sell goods. The town’s businesses and cultural amenities were situated along Dewey Avenue, a roughly three-block commercial strip convenient to both local residents and commercial and pleasure travelers arriving on one of the two railroads or by automobile.
In the 1910s and 1920s in virtually all small towns in Oklahoma, as elsewhere, citizens realized that in order to make their town develop new businesses, become prosperous, and grow in population, it needed to offer incentives and amenities. It needed retail businesses selling goods and services from substantial buildings as well as hotels for traveling business people and prospective new residents. Promotion of better business buildings and hotels was often a combined effort of city councils, chambers of commerce committees, and wealthy residents who combined to raise financing to build such a thing as a good, fireproof hotel. Thus, in Oklahoma towns from Alva to Altus, Miami to Muskogee, McAlester, and elsewhere, as hotels were a product of local groups’ efforts to organize development projects. In other localities, although development was encouraged by the same group of boosters, the economic actors differed. They were often bankers or entrepreneurs. Individual entrepreneurs were naturally drawn into the construction scheme and carried some of the local development on their own shoulders. Entrepreneurs wanted to develop their towns, certainly, but they also wanted personal enrichment. They did promote communally organized ventures, but they also opened their own, privately held businesses to fill a local need and to attract travelers and new residents who might become their customers.
In Poteau, Wiley W. Lowrey, an individual entrepreneur, erected several large and small buildings in town. His Lowrey Building at 301 Dewey Avenue in 1922-23 was intended to be the town’s biggest and most modern office building. Before it had existed for even a decade, it was converted into the Hotel Lowrey in 1931-32. In both instances, the projects were an investment of personal financial resources in a profit-making venture that would also build up the community.
As the town continued to benefit from the oil boom, rail arteries, and cross-state auto traffic, local investors were poised to participate in the economy and boost local prosperity. A Missourian, Wiley W. Lowrey (1877-1944) had come to the area in the early 1900s. He was involved in creating nearly a dozen registered businesses in LeFlore County between 1902 and 1918, roughly the period of years in which he lived in Poteau. Before 1916, Lowrey erected a two-story edifice housing a drug store and a grocery store on the northwest corner of Dewey Avenue and North Witte Street and a few other smaller buildings. During his period of investment in Poteau, the town grew to a population of nearly 4,000 and became an important regional commercial center and shipping point, but it would be unwise to give him the full credit for that. Even after Lowrey left Poteau for Oklahoma City circa 1918, continued his efforts in LeFlore County, investing in various Poteau business ventures. He and others created the American Indian Oil and Gas Company, a 1918 petroleum venture that drilled in the gas field adjacent to Poteau. He always maintained an office in one his local buildings in order to manage his real estate properties.
By 1922, Poteau’s bustling business district lay along Dewey Avenue, running west to east from the SLSF railroad at Main Street to Harper Street, near the KCS railroad. There were “three solid blocks of brick building on Dewey Avenue,” as noted by the Poteau News. Using North Witte Street (a block west of Harper Street) as a dividing line, to the west the buildings on Dewey Avenue were substantial one- and two-story “bricks.” East of North Witte Street the buildings were wood-frame, in one and two stories. On the northeast corner of Dewey Avenue and North Witte Street, at 301 Dewey Avenue, Wiley Lowrey purchased lot 5 of Block 91 and quickly commenced construction of his second brick building downtown. Plans were announced in mid-April 1922 that a contract had been let for “one of the finest, if not the finest brick buildings in the county [that] will be erected . . . on Dewey Avenue. That will close up the last vacant lot on that block.” The newspaper praised Lowrey, saying that “while he left for a larger city, he still is willing to spend his money helping make [Poteau] boom.” The edifice would be substantial, of three stories, and would include Classical Revival decoration, always symbolizing stability and trustworthiness.
Construction on Lowrey’s new office building began in early summer 1922. Excavations in June were contracted to J. S. Terry, a local builder. By August the concrete for the second and third stories were being poured. Snags in acquiring building materials slowed the project, but by early December the building had been bricked on the exterior, and interior finishes were being applied.
Additional delays occurred due to winter weather, but by the end of March 1923 the building was virtually competed. It comprised a three-story building measuring 130 feet north and south and 50 feet east and west. It had two sections of commercial spaces on the first floor; in a south-facing section were three spaces with doors off Dewey Avenue; and in the west-facing section were five spaces with doors on North Witte Street and also rear entrances in the east elevation. The upper floors were devoted to small offices, and every room had a window. The entirety was said to have had 46 rooms, and the local newspaper touted it as being completely fireproof and as the only such building in eastern Oklahoma.
Retail establishments and professional offices began occupying the new building spring 1923, even before its interior was fully complete. W. W. Lowrey set up his local offices on the third floor. Office tenants included two doctors, contractor J. S. Terry (the building’s contractor), a civil engineer, two insurance agencies, several attorneys, and dozens of professional men. Mrs. Greenlee’s millinery store occupied two retail spaces off North Witte Street. The Rex Confectionery, took the best space of all, the corner of North Witte Street and Dewey Avenue appears to have been no “grand opening.” Before 1931 a “presser” (aka dry cleaner), a confectionary, and a jewelry store found homes in the spaces fronting on Dewey Avenue, and three retail establishments, an office, and a lodge hall occupied the first floor of the north section.
For nine years, from 1923 into 1931, the building served the business community as Poteau’s largest office building. When the great Depression began in 1929, Poteau was affected in ways that similarly disturbed small-town life across the United States. However, because it was a nexus of regional transportation, serving both highway and rail traffic between fort Smith, Muskogee, and Hugo, Poteau persisted as a viable commercial center. In 1929 there were twenty-six manufacturing operations in LeFlore County. Nevertheless, by 1931, the worst year of the Depression, there were fewer.
At the depth of the national and local crisis, the town of Poteau had declined to 3,100 in population. Wiley W. Lowrey’s office building was likely losing tenants. Always a “plunger,” Lowrey boldly decided that what Poteau needed was a “first-class hotel” to serve businessmen and attract people traveling across the country. The Poteau News noted in October 1931 that the city was experiencing an “influx of people who are looking for homes among the mountains.” At that time, the state highway system was nascent, even new highways were paved, and there were no “interstate highways.” The hotel project would give jobs to local construction companies and workmen and provide new spaces to local businesses. The town’s present state of hotel accommodations made this a viable investment and a public service.
In the past, the community had supported a few small hotels. By 1916, there were four. Two of modest size and reputation, the Central and an unnamed one, were sited in the 300 block of Dewey Avenue, and the Milner was in the 500 block. All of these were wood-frame building, subject to fire and generally considered unsafe for multiple occupancy. The Howell House, a large “commercial travelers’ hotel,” was sited adjacent to the SLSF line, but this kind of establishment catered to “traveling salesmen,” and was avoided by “respectable” people with families. By 1925 the Milner had been enlarged into the Commercial Hotel, and a new venture, the Judkins, had been built at 401 Dewey Avenue. At two-stories, it appears to be the town’s first brick hotel building. A third, smaller one existed down the street. Although they were conveniently located, none was of “the first class.”
Lowrey announced his hotel plans in mid-September 1931. Because hotel location was always important, the establishment was planned to occupy the full three stories of the existing Lowrey Building at 301 Dewey Avenue. It would thus remain on the central street and would be about equidistant between the two railroad lines. Construction contracts were given to companies in Oklahoma City, with local subcontractors for other parts of the work such as plumbing and electrical. In price and quality, the dining room’s accoutrements, as well as all carpeting and interior furnishings throughout the hotel, were to be modeled on those of the Skirvin Hotel in Oklahoma City.
The hotel would be spacious, and the accommodations and amenities would be up to a modern standard of luxury. There would be approximately 32 guest rooms, most with attached baths. On the second floor, adjacent to their stairwell, a large public bathroom (sink, tub, and toilet) would serve hotel guests in rooms that had no attached bathroom and also be available to travelers who only dined at the hotel or waited there between trains. The guest rooms would occupy the entire 130 feet of the third floor and would also be in the second floor of the north section, over the existing retail spaces, with five additional guest rooms on the east side of the north section, behind the retail spaces. In the south section, along Dewey Avenue in the former commercial spaces, were the two-story-height lobby, the Hotel Lowrey Coffee Shop, and the Puritan Café (hotel dining room). The food areas also offered a large mezzanine for a private dining room. News stories touted a future roof garden, but no proof exists that it was ever made reality. Hotel amenities, including a barber shop and a beauty shop, were situated in the first floor of the north section along North Witte Street.
Lowrey hired professional hotel managers Mr. and Mrs. J. M. Berry, reputedly “among the leading hotel people of the southwest.” They were soon succeeded by Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Hodgson, also well known in the region. The hotel was open to guests in late May 1932, and on May 30 a low-key “opening” consisted of a simple public declaration that meals were now available in the dining room. As an apparent afterthought, Lowrey had an air cooling system installed in mid-July. The hotel stayed at a 100 percent occupation rate for more than three months after it opened, prompting Lowrey to consider adding another floor of rooms, but this never materialized.
The combination of lower-part-retail and upper-part hotel was ideal. The Hotel Lowrey was featured in a 1933 edition of Oklahoma Hotels and was lauded as the peer of hotels “fifteen, twenty, and even fifty times as large.” It was “dignified” in its appointments, furniture, draperies and general atmosphere,” and “gives Eastern Oklahoma a tone and appeal which would be impossible without it.” The facility continued to attract travelers for three decades. The coffee shop was a popular community gathering spot, and the shops along North Witte Street also remained viable. The standard hotel-related service businesses persisted, with the other spaces rented to insurance agencies and other enterprises, and in the late 1950s, the Poteau Chamber of Commerce. Businesses continued to use the first floor north commercial spaces after the Hotel Lowrey closed in 1965. Its demise is attributed to the new east-west Interstate 40, miles to the north, as well as the increasing location of motels at the town’s outskirts, along Poteau’s major transportation arteries. The dates of significance are therefore drawn to end in 1965, when the major activity conducted in the building was no longer Commerce but had shifted to nonprofit educational.
In 1972 the Lowrey estate leased the vacant hotel section (the south section and the entire upper floors) to Carl Albert Junior College, a local educational institution. The school used the property for student housing, altering windows, doors, and interiors in order to seal the envelope and accommodate a new HVAC system. In 1980 LeFlore County purchased the property and continued various leases, primarily to Oklahoma State University. Through the 1990s and into the twenty-first century, occupation of the former hotel section gradually declined into vacancy and the building drifted into neglect. In 2008 the LeFlore County Historical Society lease it and in 2009 rehabilitated the historic interior and exterior as much as finances would allow.
As of 2021 it remains open as a local history museum open Tuesday through Saturday from 11am until 3pm. Admission is free – donations welcome.
The Hotel Lowrey located at 301 Dewey Avenue, in Poteau, Oklahoma, amply illustrates the historical pattern of small-town commercial development in trading in goods and services and the historical pattern of hotel development, during the period of its significance, 1922-1965. The building retains the visual integrity of its original location and setting, as well as much of the building’s original historic design, materials, and workmanship and also retains the feeling association of its role in Poteau’s commercial past.
The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion A, Commerce.
Guest room on display at the LCHS Museum
Original Switchboard used at the hotel, on display the museum.
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