Hinton's largest commercial building is this five-story hotel with shops originally located on the first floor. The entrance to the lobby was through doorways protected by one-story porticoes that centered the two facades and extended over the sidewalks. On the colorful street facades, dark red brick walls contrast with yellow brick quoins and prominent jack-arched lintels. Only the supports now remain of fifthfloor balconies that once indicated the choice rooms. A prominent modillioned metal cornice, topped by a parapet, provides a fitting cap to the building.
James H. Miller's History of Summers County (1908) lauded the McCreery as “the greatest and costliest structure constructed to this time in the county.” Twenty-two of its eighty rooms had “private baths, with hot and cold water,” and all had “handsome electric light fixtures.” When the hotel opened, the local press boasted that it contained “928,825 common brick, 78,122 pressed brick,… 10,300 square feet of metal ceiling, and fifteen thousand square yards of plastering.” The now-vacant hotel is slated for rehabilitation as housing for senior citizens.
An unusual and poignant bit of local history resides in the alley between the hotel and the adjacent building on Ballengee Street. When Nat, the mule that carried passengers from the C&O depot to the hotel, died, his “horse” shoes were embedded in concrete here.