Stone Hotel

35630 Santa Fe St., Daggett, CA
Phone:

East < GO > West

Originally this was the Railroad Hotel and Eating House, but for most of its life it's been known as the Stone Hotel. It was built in 1882 or early 1883 about when the Southern Pacific Railroad arrived in Daggett. Railroad Hotels and Eating Houses were typically built for the railroad at depots along the line, passengers would grab a quick meal while the train waited or took on water etc. That first wood frame hotel didn't last long before it burned down in June of 1883. By then it had been sold to a private businessman.

No time was wasted in rebuilding the hotel, this time with two foot thick stone walls on the first floor. The stone walls are apparently where the "Stone Hotel" name eventually came from. It seemed like a pretty study building with those thick stone walls, until they were about left standing after a fire in 1890.

After that fire it was rebuilt one more time as a two story structure with a unique small glass walled and glass domed cupola on the roof, the cupola was illuminated by an oil lamp. That oil lamp apparently turned out to be the cause of a huge fire in 1908 that consumed the hotel and several other commercial buildings on both side of the hotel and a number of homes behind it.

After the 1908 fire the hotel was once again rebuilt, but without the second floor that time, instead of the second floor there were two wings extending out from the back. One wing held guest rooms and the other the owners quarters. Remnants of those two wings were still standing behind the main building in 2015 and may still be there.

"Death Valley Scotty" was a regular guest in the very early 1900s. His room even had it's own private entrance, the door on the far right in the photo below. Other notable guests of the hotel included Wallace Berry, Tom Mix, Wyatt Earp, John Muir and Lt. Governor John Daggett among others. It is located on Santa Fe Street just east of Mills St. The town was named for the Lt. Governor.

The new false front or parapet that came with the rebuilding after the 1908 fire is sided with stamped or pressed steel in a with stone or rough brick pattern. The cornice appears to be stamped tin or steel also.

The same family owned the hotel from 1892 until 1972. I'm not sure when the hotel stopped catering to the tourist trade, one source says 1932. In one old postcard that appears to be from the 1940s it appears to be in use, maybe as a rooming house?

The Lacy family bought the hotel in 1972 and donated it to the San Bernardino County Museum Association in 1977. The Museum Association also owns the old store next to the hotel and restoration of the two buildings has been has been an ongoing goal ever since. The hotel did get a new roof in 1985.

As if several fires in it's first 100 years didn't take enough of a toll on the little hotel, it was damaged again in the 1992 magnitude 7.3 Landers and the 1999 magnitude 7.1 Hector Mine earthquakes.

Photo(s): 2013, 2015