The St. George Hotel on York’s North George Street
Terrence Downs submitted this photo of a York Directory ad, indicating the St. George Hotel was on George and Philadelphia Streets. Earlier this week I wrote about the Haines Hotel; also on one of the corners of the same intersection. The York Directory ad as well includes the Hotel Penn; another hotel on one of the corners of the same intersection. Hotels on all corners, less one; where the Strand Theatre was built in 1925 by Nathan Appell, the grandfather of Louis J. Appell, Jr.
The St. George Hotel is the first hotel listed as “Other Hotels:” in the List of Top Hotels in York within the 1930 Map of The City of York. That list was provided in the Haines Hotel post.
My collections include a 1945 Map of The City of York, with many structures identified; a small section is shown in this illustration. Structure (52) is identified as the Milner Hotel; on the northeast corner of George and Philadelphia Streets. Structure (53) is identified as the Hotel Penn; which was torn down to build the York County Judicial Center at 45 North George Street. If you are reading this on the Ydr.com site, click on this LINK for a Full View of the illustrations in this post on the original YorkBlog site; since the ydr.com site will occasionally cut off important details in the cropping of illustrations.
An August 31, 1935, article in The Gazette and Daily, provided the connection between the St. George Hotel and the Milner Hotel on the northeast corner of George and Philadelphia Streets. Quoting from that article, entitled “St. George leased to Milner Hotels”:
The successful negotiation of a five-year lease on the St. George Hotel, George and Philadelphia streets, was announced yesterday by Charles H. Moore and Harry P. Kissinger, of the York Trust Company. The hotel, it was revealed, has been leased to the Milner Hotels, Inc., with headquarters in Detroit. This firm operates a chain of fifty medium priced hotels in the East and Middle West, ten hotels in Pennsylvania.
An article in the March 23, 1946, issue of The Gazette and Daily, reports “Charles A. Sollenberger, owner of the Direct Hat Shop, has bought the Milner Hotel, 9 East Philadelphia Street, at the northeast corner of George and Philadelphia streets.” Mr. Sollenberger operated the Direct Hat Shop, for 18-years, at 101 North George Street, in the first floor of the 40-room hotel. Although Mr. Sollenberger became the owner, he continued to utilize Milner Hotels to manage the hotel.
In 1958, when Milner Hotels, Inc. took control of the Colonial Hotel on Continental Square in York, Milner Hotels are still managing the hotel on the northeast corner of George and Philadelphia streets. Sometime thereafter, Mr. Sollenberger takes over management of his hotel and names it the Direct Hotel.
Evidently little was spent on maintaining and keeping the Direct Hotel up to code; because in 1975, the Bureau of Occupational and Industrial Safety declared the building “is not safe for use.” The May 6, 1975, issue of the York Daily Record reported, “Direct Hotel, 9 E. Philadelphia St. has been ordered to vacate the premises within a reasonable time by the state Department of Labor and Industry because of five violations of the fire safety code.” The following photo of the Direct Hotel accompanied that article.
After the Direct Hotel was demolished, it was replaced by the building, presently standing on that corner. That structure was built to house the production printing presses for the York Dispatch.
Links to other hotel related posts include:
- Mahlon Haines’ Hotel endures on North George Street
- Violet Hill in Spring Garden Township; Assorted Maps, Hotel & Schoolhouses
- Artwork by Cliff Satterthwaite completes Freysville Trilogy
