Encyclopedia Dubuque
"Encyclopedia Dubuque is the online authority for all things Dubuque, written by the people who know the city best.”
Marshall Cohen—researcher and producer, CNN
Affiliated with the Local History Network of the State Historical Society of Iowa, and the Iowa Museum Association.
HOTELS (early)
HOTELS (early). Early Dubuque was the site of many of the 'West's" finest hotels including the JULIEN HOUSE, KEY CITY HOUSE, LORIMIER HOUSE, Globe Hotel, and the ST. CLOUD.
Known originally as the Waples House, the Julien House was constructed in 1844 by Peter WAPLES. Fronting sixty-four feet of Main Street, the four-story high building used its first floor for store purposes and the remainder of the building for lodging.
The hotel was enlarged to have eighty rooms in 1854 by Messrs. Burton and Finley to meet the heavy need for hotel space. The hotel was located at 200 Main Street until 1913 when a fire completely destroyed it. The hotel was rebuilt in 1914. The name was changed to the Julien and years later to the HOTEL JULIEN DUBUQUE.
Designed in 1848 and located at the corner of Main and Third STREETS, the Key City House was used for a time as a store and warehouse. In 1854 it was enlarged and opened for occupants.
The Lorimer House, named for its founder and one of the original settlers of Dubuque, was located on the corner of Bluff and Eighth Streets. Plans for the building were drawn in 1856, and work began quickly in the spring. Work, not completed before winter, was resumed the next spring.
The structure was used as a boarding house until 1870. Refurbished in 1870, the building was reopened as a hotel by William Barnard and W. L. de Lorimer. The hotel, leased to Barnard Brothers in 1874, remained in their control until May 1879, when William Barnard became the sole proprietor. Lorimer House had two hundred rooms with a capacity of an estimated eight hundred guests.
The St. Cloud has been called Dubuque's most magnificent and shortest-lived hotel. Measuring 196 feet in length and 113 feet in width, the hotel, built at a cost estimated to be $100,000, was completed in August 1857, and destroyed by fire on January 21, 1858.
Located on Main Street between Ninth and Tenth Streets, the hotel's lower floor was planned to accommodate shops. There were four upper floors for guest rooms. Steam heat was used, and every room had gas and water available. Furniture was imported from Boston, New York, and Ohio. Newspaper accounts suspected arson as the basis of the fire discovered between 11:00 to 12:00 p.m. The block on which the hotel had been built lay vacant for many years with the scars of the fire hidden by a tall wooden fence.
