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Brunswick Hotel

315 East Andy Devine Ave., Kingman, AZ
Phone:

East < GO > West

The 1909 Hotel Brunswick was one of the first three story buildings in the area and is an interesting place. The 50 room hotel was built by a pair of gentlemen named Mulligan and Thompson. Apparently these guys eventually got into a competition for the affections of a lady which led to them splitting the use of the hotel in a rather odd deal where they each operated one side of the building. They literally divided the place in two by building a wall down the middle from front to back.

The two sides of the hotel still thrived but stayed divided until the mid 1960s when the owner of the Thompson side bought the Mulligan side too. That owner, Joe Otera took down wall soon closed the upper floors where the hotel rooms were and just operated the restaurant on the main floor. The building was apparently more or less abandoned in 1980. A series of later owners attempted to restore and reopen the hotel without much success.

For a short time after its construction this was the tallest building between Albuquerque and San Bernardino, California. The hotel closed in 2010 after a 100 year run due to the recession at the time. It has since reopened.

Then there's the issue of the building being haunted. Some reports say the ghosts are a young girl and others say an elderly long term guest, for all I know they could both be lurking around the place. At any rate the building has had several owners over the years and was purchased in 2012 by a Swiss gentleman with intentions of restoring it.

The Brunswick Hotel sign hangs in the middle of the facade of the building with the Mulligan and Thompson names appearing above the parapet on each side of the sign. Could it be that the signs indicate which side each operated?

Each of the original owners is immortalized in stone on the top of the building. I wonder if the location of the names indicates which side of the building each operated.

Photo(s): 2013