History crumbles as ‘hotel’ sits empty

It’s empty now.

The old Peoria hotel once stood in the heart of the town, near the nucleus of the 152-year-old city.

Parts of it remain, buried behind wood and siding — cosmetics that make a historic hotel resemble a house. But it’s still there, masked behind years of wear and tear, years of personal usage.

Many people in Peoria still know it as the old hotel, still recognize it as that, still call it that.

But it’s empty now.

Robert Rice’s family moved out of the old hotel, 3901 Labette Terrace, about four months ago. It was never a hotel to them. To Rice and his family, it’s always been a home, always been a residence.

The Rices were told to leave the property after the house became a health concern, Larry Walrod, county planning and building director, said.

 Rice said the building had no running water.

“We were trying to fix it,” he said. “But they told us we had to get out of there.”

Walrod said without water, the hotel — which has functioned as a single-family residence for many years — has no sanitation, and until recently, no also had electricity.

Rice lived in the old hotel for most of his life — about 25 years — and his grandmother has lived there even longer.

“It’s pretty hard,” Rice said of leaving his home.

Rice’s family moved their belongings out in one month and now live in Ottawa. But they left something behind — the hotel, the home they’ve grown to love.

With the Rices gone, the old Peoria hotel sits vacant. No one enters; no one exits. Traces of the family remain — additions to the house, an old truck, a shed.

But no sound comes from within the walls. No people live there.

It’s empty.

Walrod said the old Peoria hotel isn’t the only abandoned structure in the county. There are others — an old barn here, a house there. But this particular structure has a history, has a past.

Deb Barker, director of the Franklin County Historical Society, is familiar with the old Peoria hotel — though she admits she’s not an expert on Peoria.

What Barker knows about the building, about the history of the hotel, is that in the late 1850s, a man by the name of Alfred Johnson came to Peoria and opened a general store. The city of Peoria grew around the store, and a few years later, Johnson’s older brother opened a hotel.

“We have a whole bunch of histories of Peoria that were written in 1961,” Barker said. “They talk about two different buildings as hotels. That’s certainly not impossible.”

Over the years, the old hotel served as a stage stop, a saloon, trading post and a place for room and board, Barker said.

But only a small portion of the old hotel is thought to still remain, tucked away in the Rice family’s house.

The family isn’t allowed to move into the house without running water — which would cost them $20,000 or more — but they still own the house, still can call it their own.

“Like all the other old houses in the county, it will continue to sit there,” Walrod said.

But what the Rices miss about living in the building isn’t its rich history, isn’t its impact on the town of Peoria. What Rice said he misses the most, is the location.

“I kind of miss it just because it’s quiet out there, and there’s no traffic,” he said.

E-mail Courtney Servaes at cservaes@ottawaherald.com.