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1837 – 1840s
The Traveler's Rest. Benjamin Wall took his license at the November term of 1837 for the southeast corner of Michigan and Jefferson streets. The house announced itself the way roadside houses did: a swinging sign reading "Traveler's Rest" and a guide-board giving the distance that mattered to its trade — "65 miles to Logansport." Nothing more of its course survives in the record reached; the building itself was later removed bodily to 1221 Laurel Street, a frame house picked up and moved in the manner of the town's first building stock. It is printed at this size because this is the size the record gives it.
The Franklin House. On lot 36, the south side of Washington Street, Henry and Margaret Diehl — German immigrants — kept the Franklin House. Diehl took a liquor license at the September term of 1837 and a tavern license at the September term of 1840. He was a baker as well as a keeper, and the house's fame in Leeper's telling is domestic: his gingerbread and his root beer were famous, and his musical clock was one of the attractions of the town — travelers lodged where the baking was good and the clock played. Diehl died on 19 November 1841, about thirty-five years old; his widow Margaret continued the business for some time after him, one of the women who carried the town's lodging trade in its first generation. No closing date for the Franklin House survives in the record reached.
Sources:
- Timothy E. Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (1907), vol. 1, Leeper's hotel reminiscences, read first-hand.