Falls Hotel, Restaurant, and Lounge (Falls Hotel)

The three-story brick hotel was constructed at a time when the lumbering industry in the Newberry vicinity was in decline. Built on quicksand, Houghton contractor Herman Gundlach stabilized and erected it after driving railroad ties beneath the footings. This solution recalls the raft, rail, and caisson foundations used in the building of skyscrapers in Chicago in the 1880s and 1890s. Gundlach had associated with Paul Mueller, who worked on the construction of the Auditorium Building and others in Chicago. The ample first-floor lobby, reading room, and dining room—well lighted and finished in oak—and the comfortable guest rooms on the upper floors made the hotel a favorite with travelers. The building replaced the McLeod house, an earlier structure that burned in 1914. The hotel reflects Newberry's determination to survive after the white pine was gone.