Big Spring already had two commercial hotels (both since demolished) before construction of this “prairie skyscraper,” which advertised the town from miles away by its height and illuminated sign (the Settles is also visible through the rear window of the departing bus in John Schlesinger’s 1969 film Midnight Cowboy). The hotel’s lower two and three stories of public rooms occupy half a city block, with the vertical shaft of guestrooms rising an additional eleven stories to culminate in a setback penthouse. The building’s massing is similar to Castle’s Wooten Hotel (SB23) in Abilene. It is clad in tawny brick with stone trim, and the stylized detailing is shallowly modeled. Local rancher W. R. Settles built the hotel with oil royalties but lost it in the Great Depression after barely two years of operation. Successive owners kept the hotel open until the 1980s, after which it sat vacant and deteriorating until 2006, when it was acquired by Dallas tax consultant and Big Spring native G. Brint Ryan. It reopened in 2012 after being rehabilitated.