Hotels: the Empire, the Hotel Grant, and the 1916–17 cluster

By 1875 – c. 1920 and after

A hotel was operating in North Liberty by 1875; the question that remains is only how much earlier. Earlier passes found no hotel named for 1837 to about 1875 in any carrier read. This pass's whole read of the 1875 atlas directory lists the Empire Hotel at North Liberty under Magdalena Rupert (settled in the county 1855) — so a hotel under that name was operating by 1875, and the residue of the open question narrows to 1837–1875, standing as a named gap on its standing settlers. Who operated the Empire stands in conflict, printed whole in this build's register: the nomination's narrative names Adam Rupert (1880) and the gazetteers of 1880–81, 1882–83, and 1884–85 each print "Rupert Adam, hotel," while the nomination's own c.1886 patrons list and the atlas directory both print Magdalena Rupert; the file does not choose. The Hotel Grant, a large two-story frame hotel with a wrap-around porch at the northwest corner of Center and Main, was built about 1875 and replaced about 1920 by the Ford sales building; in 1909 the hotel and a livery stood at that corner, and Polk 1916–17 still lists "Grant Hotel, Emil Greening propr" — the house trading under the Grant name in 1916–17. That edition's hotel cluster is three houses deep: James E. Foster, hotel and restaurant; the Grant Hotel under Greening; and the Wabash Hotel, Fred Mann proprietor — the Wabash's name being the railroad's, the depot trade its natural reading, printed as context and not as a carrier's statement. One more house stands unnamed: by 1929 a dwelling south of 119 North Main had been converted to a hotel, later razed for the 1960 bank building; no carrier reached names it, a named gap on the 1929 Sanborn sheet and the 1929 News. Gardner's Inn appears in the 1940 telephone directory's list, name only. One more hotel name stands in the record at cross-pass strength: the people leg's read of the nomination's Main Street building entries carries a Comstock House, whose hotel land at 125 North Main — the lot the State Bank's building later rose on — was purchased by a William Hoffman in 1875 and sold in 1877; the nomination, as read there, does not equate that William Hoffman with Daniel Hoffman of the drug line in this section, and the Comstock House stands here unreconciled with the Empire Hotel record above, its reconciliation queued for the depth audit's read of the nomination's 121–128 North Main entries whole.