In 1916, the social event of the year in Columbus, Ohio was set for Wednesday, August 23rd. Columbus’ newest hotel – the elegant 12-story Deshler was opening and throwing a party in the heart of downtown. Local department stores had been running sales on evening gowns leading up to the big gala.
Lew & Adrian Wallick – well known in the hotel business in Cleveland and New York – were the management group. The new $1.5 million hotel’s main attraction was the spacious Pompeian style second floor ballroom. Five hundred VIPs would gather for the formal opening, mingle, dine, and be entertained.
A private train from New York arrived the morning of the big gala with almost one hundred guests and the evening’s entertainment – Maurice and Walton – one of the most successful exhibition ballroom dance teams of their day. Their price for the evening’s short performance: $1500.
A long list of prominent New York hotel owners, a banker, an importer, a cigar manufacturer, a railroad guy and an editor of the New York Hotel Review all came on the train. A welcoming committee from Columbus met them at Union Station and escorted their guests to the Deshler for a tour and a noon luncheon in the Ionian Room. Over 100 chefs, waiters and roving captains were hired from New York for the event.
64-yr-old John Deshler (hotel owner), A.L. Wallick (his management partner) and two of the country’s biggest hotel men – E. M. Statler and John Bowman – spoke at the gala that night.
The Deshler’s exterior was a beautiful brick and terra cotta. The hotel itself sat at the corner of Broad & High Streets and featured 400 rooms, 350 of which came with private baths and all rooms had running water.
Showcased in the lobby was an expansive $15,000 Oriental rug. The Deshler featured a restaurant on the first floor, a men’s only café in the basement, private dining rooms off the ballroom on the second floor, the Ionian Room that featured nightly music including jazz combos from New York and Marimba bands from Guatemala, luxury furnishings costing $400,000, and a telephone switchboard that could service a town of 5000.
The Deshler’s were among the city’s elite. In July 1817 David Deshler and his young bride Betsy arrived in Columbus on a horse-drawn wagon. The newlyweds bought the lot on the northwest corner of Broad & High Street for $1000. That brilliant purchase put the Deshler name into Columbus lore for the next 150 years.
Soon after the big gala, the hotel was opened for public viewing. Women of Columbus lined the streets by the thousands for a chance to see the grand new hotel. The Deshler was prepared and brought in three hundred employees from NYC to greet them.
The AIU Citadel (now the LeVeque Tower) was built two years later next door and with it came a 600 room addition and a name extension – the Deshler-Wallick. A second floor venetian bridge over Wall Street alley connected to the new Citadel which made it the city’s first 1000 room hotel.
Frequent dining room visitors to the Deshler were Warren G Harding (U.S. president from 1921-1923), Henry Ford, Claude Meeker (wealthy stockbroker), W.H. Button (respected horse breeder).
Among its permanent residents were Mrs Robert Wolfe who lived in the Deshler after becoming a widow; Mrs Battelle and her son; brewer Carl Hoster and Dayton millionaire Governor James Cox who honeymooned at the Deshler and then decided to reside there.
Among the dignitaries to stay at the Deshler Hotel was President Harry S. Truman and his wife Bess while he was still in office in 1946. Upon leaving office in 1953, the Trumans created quite a stir in the hotel lobby when they showed up on an early July summer day unannounced and without a reservation. They apparently were driving their own car back to Missouri. We do know they stayed in room 1663 which very probably was the lush Capital Suite.
The Deshler closed its doors on July 31, 1968, and was demolished the next year. There was nothing but a parking lot on the site until 1984. The Deshler Trust could not come to terms with Katherine LeVeque who was wanting to buy the property. Finally, LeVeque upped her bid to $2.1 million and the deal was done.
One Columbus Center – a 25-story office building – was built and opened on that site in 1987.
The Deshler Hotel was a dream of David Deshler. Funds were raised to build that dream by his son William Green Deshler who died six months before the grand opening. David’s grandson John Green Deshler got the honor of building the hotel on the site of his grandparent’s two-room log cabin. Well done Deshler family!
John Green Deshler – because this property meant so much to his family – wrote a letter to the future citizens of his beloved Columbus – dated August 2, 1915. The letter was placed in a time capsule and found in the cornerstone of the Deshler Hotel when it was razed in 1969.
In the letter he states that he is sure that the world will continue to advance and we should be very glad that we are living in the 21st century instead of the 20th century. But he says, “I doubt very much if you will really be any happier than we are, or my grandmother was, but you will know so much more and things that will be simple to you, would be wonderful to us.”
John Green Deshler died on June 7, 1929 in Bexley. He and his father William are buried in Greenlawn Cemetery.
Sources: Collections.columbuslibrary.org/The Deshlers come to Columbus – Columbus Dispatch July 24, 2012; Columbus: America’s Crossroads by Betty Garrett with Edward R Lentz 1980; On this Date in Columbus Ohio history by Tom Betti and Doreen Uhas Sauer for the Columbus Landmarks Foundation 2013; Columbus Historical Society July, 2023; As It Were by Ed Lentz; Columbus Underground – Columbus’ First 1000 room hotel by Doug Motz Feb 11, 2023; Columbus 1910 – 1970 by Richard E Barrett; ‘New Deshler is culmination of pioneer’s dream’, Columbus Dispatch Aug 23, 1916; Historic Hotels of Columbus, Ohio by Tom Betti and Doreen Uhas Sauer, 2015; Columbus Vignettes by Bill Arter, Vol IV, 1971. Featured pictures courtesy of the Columbus Metropolitan Library.