Joplin’s Connor Hotel, published by The History Press, and Tom Connor: Joplin’s Millionaire Zinc King, published by Lulu.com, together tell the story of how an Irish immigrant struck it rich in southwest Missouri and spent his money on others instead of building a mansion for himself.
Opened in 1908, the eight-story Connor Hotel – nine floors including the rooftop – served as Joplin’s main gathering space for the next 50 years.
At the Connor, you could watch the world go by – celebrities, politicians, famous athletes, traveling salesmen, fugitives, con men and swindlers – or at least you could watch Joplin go by. Guests included “Pretty Boy” Floyd, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Eleanor Roosevelt, Gene Autry, and Robert Wadlow, the world’s tallest man.
***
Chad Stebbins' books can be ordered through these Amazon links.
***
Tom Connor spent a small fortune in tearing down the old Joplin Hotel and building an elegant hostelry in its place. “I have determined to give Joplin the finest hotel property in this part of the country,” he told a reporter in 1906. Connor hired the leading architectural firm in St. Louis to design “the handsomest hotel building west of New York city.” The pièce de résistance was a white Italian marble rotunda and grand staircase that reportedly cost $250,000.
Connor didn’t live to see the hotel completed, but his heirs decided to name it in his honor instead of calling it the Joplin Hotel or the New Joplin Hotel. They also hired the Dean brothers, two of the best-known hotel proprietors in the Midwest, to manage the 210-room edifice that featured three dining rooms, a barbershop, a bar, a cigar and newsstand, and a billiards room.
During the second decade of the 20th century, the Connor’s Roof Garden was the place to be in Joplin. Guests could enjoy cool breezes, the hotel’s orchestra, cabarets and other performing acts, special menus, and a superb view of the city. The Connor became the first hotel in the country to publish its own newspaper when Atop the Connor Bulletin made its debut in July 1913.
Kansas City hotelier Barney Allis bought the Connor lease in 1923 and immediately began making plans to build a nine-story annex to the west of the Connor. He anticipated that the additional rooms would be needed as Joplin grew its reputation as a convention city. Joplin would be the only city in the country with a population of 35,000 and a 400-bed hotel.
The annex, which opened in 1929, now meant that the Connor had five restaurants, six private dining rooms with catered service, several businesses and shops along the grand corridor of the annex, an elaborate public address system that was controlled from a radio room on the roof, and a staff of nearly 300. The Connor became a convention hotel, and Joplin started billing itself as the “Convention City of the Southwest.”
When Allis sold the annex and the lease on the original hotel to Alsonett Hotels in 1946 to focus on his Hotel Muehlebach in Kansas City, he essentially signed the Connor’s death warrant.
Alsonett’s business strategy was to buy aging properties for as little as possible, invest next to nothing in improvements or renovations, squeeze out the maximum amount of profit, and close them rather than sell them. That negligence, coupled with the emergency of the Range Line Road motel district in the late 1950s and early 1960s, spelled the beginning of the end for the Connor.
The hotel closed in 1969 and was purchased by Burl Garvin and Roy Steele two years later. They announced some ambitious plans for the hotel but were unable to secure enough funding to proceed. As the Connor’s condition continued to deteriorate, the city determined that the site would make an ideal place to build a new Joplin Public Library.
Local residents attempted to “Save the Connor” in 1976-78, but the Grand Old Lady was scheduled for demolition on Nov. 12, 1978. The older section of the hotel collapsed 24 hours prematurely, leaving three workers trapped inside the rubble. After a massive search, Alfred Summers was discovered still alive 77 hours later. The bodies of the other two were found the next day.
Stebbins helped produce a seven-minute documentary about the disaster, available on YouTube by searching “Connor Hotel Collapse.” Next to the 2011 Joplin tornado that killed 161, it was the single most defining moment in the city’s history.
Both books are available on Amazon.com. To order autographed copies, contact Stebbins at stebbins-c@mssu.edu. The books have a list price of $21.99 and $10, but he can sell them together for $25. Postage is an additional $5.
No comments:
Post a Comment