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Ernst Martin Kohl Building (Traveler’s Hotel)

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1893; 1910 addition. 300 E. Main St.

Two blocks east of the railroad station (MC19) across the train tracks is a three-story orange brick former hotel with an Eastlake roofscape of gables and spires. The first floor was built in 1893 by German immigrant Ernest M. Kohl as a store and saloon serving the railroad district. In addition to operating his mercantile business, Kohl was employed as the general agent for the Frisco Lot and Land Company, bringing prospective settlers to inspect railroad-owned land in Oklahoma, which he sold on commission. Kohl’s store was built to withstand the vibrations of passing trains, with lower walls constructed of two-foot-thick limestone blocks and the columns supporting the street-level arcade of cast-in-place concrete. The two upper floors in brick were added by Kohl in 1910 as a residence and were later converted to serve as a hotel for railroad passengers and crewmen. The building’s distinguishing trademark is the Eastlake-influenced multi-gabled roof with extraordinary deep soffits with exposed joists, and half-timbered bay windows on the third story. The roof originally included a central cupola and flagpole, both removed in the 1960s.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Gerald Moorhead et al.
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Citation

Gerald Moorhead et al., "Ernst Martin Kohl Building (Traveler’s Hotel)", [Denison, Texas], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/TX-02-MC20.

Print Source

Buildings of Texas

Buildings of Texas: East, North Central, Panhandle and South Plains, and West, Gerald Moorhead and contributors. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2019, 124-124.

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