Colonial Hotel
The stationery for the Colonial Hotel, using the Old English font, is quite plain, listing only the hotel name, proprietor, city and state. Numerous businesses chose this understated style for stationery.
The Colonial Hotel was built in 1908, at 215 East Market Street, Johnson City, TN. According to Mary Hardin McCown, a noted local historian and genealogist, the hotel was owned by N. L. Murrell, boasted of sixty rooms, and had a “sales room” used by salesmen to display their wares (clothing, etc.) for local stores to buy.
In the book, Johnson City: The Way We Were, housed in the Special Collections of the Archives of Appalachia, the hotel is described as "first-class and one of the best furnished between Richmond and Chattanooga. Hot and cold running water in every room, plenty of rooms with private baths, telephones in every room, electric lights and steam heated. Cuisine of high order. Modern and first-class in every particular. PORTERS MEET ALL TRAINS."
The postcards below are from the Murrell Family Collection and the Ridley Wills East Tennessee Postcard Collection, housed in the Archives of Appalachia. The first two undated postcards show construction on the left side of the hotel and in the street. The second color postcard shows the striped awnings for shade on the verandas, and ladies and gentlemen as they promenade in front of the hotel.
Dinner menus from the Murrell Family Collection