Waldorf+of+the+Prairies

by Barbara Oringderff

On April 26, 1972, Garden City's Windor Hotel was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Rep. Keith Sebelius, R-Kan, said that the Windsor Hotel was named to the register because of the "signifigance of its distinctive architecture, which is part of our national heritage."

As nearly as can be determined, there were originally three hotels build like the Windsor. One was in the Eastern part of the United States, and it reportedly burned down many years ago. The other hotel was in Denver, Colorado, and it was torn down a few years ago in an urban renewal project. This left Garden City's Windor as the ony hotel of its kind still standing in the United States.

The elegant 125-room hotel with a unique mezzanine lobby was built in 1886 by John A. Stevens, one of the founders of Garden City, on land that he homesteaded in 1879. Probably built as part of an expensive rivalry between Stevens and C.J. "Buffalo" Jones, also a Garden City founder, Stevens commissioned architects J.H. Stevens and C.L. Thompson to design and build the biggest and most impressive building in town. The Windsor Hotel and the adjoining Stevens Opera House (no longer standing) on Garden City's Main Street were indeed the town's most impressive buildings, and for many years the Windsor was known as the "Waldorf of the Priairies," the finest hotel between Kansas City and Denver.

Actually, you have to go inside to really appreciate the Windsor and in recent years the hotel has been closed to visitors. I "discovered" the Windsor for myself a number of years ago when I was a newcomer to Western Kansas, and I have been inside the hotel - and even on the roof - many, many times. If you haven't been inside the Windsor, its hard to imagine that the center of this huge building is one big open space from the second floor to the skylighted ceiling. The "open space" makes up the spacious [(appx. 30x80 with a 45 foot ceiling) intertior court that makes the building so unique. A row of guest rooms on the third and fourth floors are arranged so that each has a window looking out onto the court, and on three sides the walls of the court are lined with balconies suspended under the neat rows of windows. At each end of the court the balconies are connected by suspended staircases beautifully carved of solid mahogony. The fanciest room in the hotel was the Presidential Suite, a three room suite that still has its beautiful cherry wood fireplace decorated with hand painted Italian tiles. When the Windsor was a 19th centry showplace, the suite was reserved exclusively "for the noted, the nororious, and the very rich." Buffalo Bill Cody, Lilllian Russell, Eddie Foy, Jay Gould, and General Dodge all reportedly stayed in the suite.

The next time you are downtown in Garden City stop and take a good look at the beautiful four story building that lends so much to the Garden City skyline. For shear grandeur and beauty, both inside and out, I don't believe there is another building in Western Kansas that can compare with it.