Home > MO > Pond >

Big Chief Cabin Hotel

17350 Manchester Rd, Pond, MO
Phone:

East < GO > West

The Mission Revival style Big Chief Roadhouse started out as the Big Chief Highway Hotel which apparently opened in 1929. There were 62 one room cabins that each had an attached garage and separate buildings for the restaurant, a gas station and the hotel office.

The cabins led to the hotel commonly being called and advertised as the Big Chief Cabin Hotel. Originally the restaurant building featured a large false bell tower on its SW corner that was removed sometime in the 50s to 70s, it was at the far right in this photo above.

In 2016 the sign indicated the name had changed again, to the Big Chief Roadhouse this time.

The property went through a series of ownership changes over the years. The original owner William Clay Pierce of the Pierce-Pennant Oil Company built this U-shaped motor court with, a restaurant, a Pierce-Pennant gas station.

That didn't last long because in 1930 he left the motel business and sold the property to Henry Sinclair of the Sinclair Refining Company, so the gas station became a Sinclair station. That didn't last all that long either because in 1933 Route 66 was moved a couple miles to the south and Sinclair sold the place. By the late 1030s the station was selling Conoco gas.

During the WWII years the cabins were rented out as housing for workers at a nearby ordnance plant. That was pretty much the end of the hotel aspect of the business as the cabins continued to be mostly long term residences after the war. By the 1970s the cabins had been torn down.

The open railing around the balcony above the porte-cochere is at least the third style since the building was new. In the early 2000s there was a crossbuck version and originally a solid stuccoed half-wall was in place. The restaurant has simple archways mark the porte-cochere on the front of the building.

----------
Vintage Advertising Highlights

Postcard (late 1930s)
Big Chief Cabin Hotel
Pond, M)
On U.S. 50
24 Miles west of St. Louis
62 fireproof rooms
Comfortable beds
Clean Linens
Hot and cold water
Showers
Wash stands
Toilets
Private garage
Screened windows
Modern and sanitary
Beautiful dining room and tap room
The best of its kind in the country
600 foot well, drilled under the supervision of the State Geological Dept.
Beautiful shade trees
In the Meramec River Resort distinct, the playgrounds of St. Louis.
Private lake
Popular prices
Real southern hospitality.
----------

Photo(s): 2016