Umatilla House
The Umatilla House, the best known hotel in the Pacific Northwest, was first built in 1857 by the Nixon Bros. and sold to Mr. Graves. It had a pitched roof. In 1858 the Umatilla House, under A.J. Nixon, prop., was the city's leading hotel. Other hotels were the Cushing hotel operated by Milo M. Cushing, the Gates Hotel operated by Col. N.H. Gates, the Wasco Hotel by A.H. Curtiss.
Col. Nicholas.B. Sinnott and Maj. Daniel Handley (a 300 lb. man) acquired the Umatilla House at First and Union in 1859 and they made it a world famous hotel of 128 rooms. It was the most notable of all the hotels and drinking places, the most elegant and best known hotel west of the Missouri and north of San Francisco.
Of Stagecoaches and Steamers
For 18 years the Umatilla House did a land office business, its bar room making even more money than the rent from the rooms or the profit from the meals.
The discovery of gold, in eastern Oregon and Idaho was the making of The Dalles. The steamers from Portland ran with capacity loads to The Dalles. The streets were full of pack trains going to the mines. Stages and wagons were soon heading for the mines. [2]
The Umatilla House was the place from which departed the stage coaches for all points in Eastern and central Oregon and eastern Washington, Idaho and Utah. That was before the days of the railroad.
On the river side of the hotel was the incline for the steamers to land along side the hotel in high water. Across Union street west was the Baldwin Opera house on the bank of Mill creek. Ice for the hotel came from the Mt. Adams caves until they built their own plant. All furniture was made for the hotel by the Oregon Furniture Manufacturing Co. of Portland. [2]
The majority of guests patronizing the Umatilla House were stock, mining, railroad and steamboat men. Scattered among them were military men from caps and forts, and the usual number of adventurers, gamblers and hard characters. But the Umatilla was singularly free of brawls. Only one shooting scrape there is clearly on record. Charlie Mitzdorf, a bartender, was killed by a bad man, Cunningham, who he tried to throw out.
When the trains stopped before the Umatilla house platform, either Handley or Sinnot would be on the platform ringing a large brass handbell and urging the passengers to accept the hospitality of the hotel. Handley would keep pointing to the front door with his thumb, jerking his hand over his shoulder while swinging the gong.
Fire burns the Umatilla House
In 1878 the Umatilla House was destroyed by fire. The ashes were hardly cool before big Dan Handley and N.B. Sinnott had men clearing the site for the erection of another building.
The Umatilla House was rebuilt in 1879 with a broad veranda on the front and west sides. It had 120 rooms and a dining room that would accommodate 200 people. It was lighted by kerosene burning chandelier lamps hung from the ceilings. Old Tom, the China boy, kept them shined and filled. The dining room could be and was converted into a ball room for the fireman's ball and other important social events. The old hotel was well known for its hospitality by miners, farmers, soldiers, boatsmen, cowboys, honeymooners, railroaders, sheepmen, salesmen, politicians, emigrants and travelers. It was a stage, boat and rail stop and a meeting place for everyone in the community, [2]
Before the hotel was finished another fire swept that part of the city and once more the Umatilla House was a pile of smoking ashes.
Undaunted by this second disaster, they at once built an even larger hotel, which was opened in 1879, with 127 rooms, a large lobby and a porch along the entire front of the building. It was located on the bank of the Columbia river and the first place the passengers of the steam boats headed for was the Umatilla House.
The West Shore magazine of July 1880 said the Umatilla House was a 100 X 120 building which cost $35,000. It had a 30 X 40 office; a dining room 50 X 90; a ladies room 24 foot square and had 123 rooms. It was rebuilt Oct. 25, 1879. They served 500 meals a day in the dining room and used $600 worth of meat a month.
The Umatilla was a 3-story structure with 127 rooms and could seat 250 in the dining room and 200 in the bar.
The Chinese cook, Chew Kee, was well known for being able to keep 200 dinner orders straight in his head, and never mixed anything up.
The dining room seated 200 and I have seen it filled with guests waiting for seats. The bar room could easily accommodate 200 and I have seen it filled with standing room at a premium. Venison, wild goose, Royal Chinook salmon were some of the specialties of the Umatilla House. Scores of balls have been held in the dining room and hundreds of weddings have been celebrated in the ladies's parlor. For a score of years it was considered "the thing" for the bride and groom to meet at the Umatilla House to be married and then celebrate the event with a wedding breakfast or luncheon, followed by a trip on the boat to Portland for a wedding journey.
The keyboard of walnut, with its carved goat's head and pendent mallard ducks is now but a souvenir of by-gone days. So too is the walnut counter, the big gilt mirrors, oil paintings of Mt. Hood, of the Columbia river, of the lady on horseback, the elk standing at bay, the made-to-order chair for Major Handley. No longer do the strains of the square piano summon festivity. The old registers of the Umatilla House were a veritable "who's who" of Oregon and the west. The signatures of George Francis Train, of around the world in 80 days fame, of Schuyler Colfax, Mark Train, Henry Vallard, U.S. Senators and statesmen galore to say nothing of the railroad magnate, world travelers or other distinguished visitors.
The price of meals were two bits and four bits, depending upon whether you sat at the commercial table or at the table for the general public which meant farm hands, mule skinners, bull whackers, prospectors, miners, brakemen, homesteaders. If you wanted to sit with the gamblers, drummers and politicians you paid four bits and had an orange or banana while the two bitters had to get along with an apple pie.
There was 12 cooks employed in the Umatilla House kitchen and 16 waiters served 600 meals a day. One large delegation of 800 people from Chicago filled the place to capacity once. Dalles railroaders generally paid $20. a month for room and board (1882). The guests ranged from bankers to bums and many miners came down to spend the winter every year, at the old hotel as likewise did sheep and cattleman. The old hotel took in hundreds of thousands of dollars. It was the bank for the railroaders and steam boat men where they came for their pay rolled in gold coins and placed in the safe with the name of each man on the roll. The larger heating stoves took full 4-foot wood. The smaller stoves in each of the 114 rooms had to have shorter wood put in the woodbox by old Tom and his Chinese helpers. Neither Handley nor Sinnott ever sued or dunned a man for an unpaid bill. When it burned in 1878 railroad and steamboat men had had their savings and pay in the safe and they authorized Handley and Sinnott to use their money for a new hotel.
Either Handley or Sinnott would meet all trains outside ringing a big brass bell to indicate dinner was being served. The hotel took all the garden produce Chas. Denton and other local gardeners including the Chinese could raise for their kitchen. Their supply room was as big as a grocery store. They stocked 4 ton of hams and bacon at a time. And several hundred dozen eggs. Once they bought 300 dozen of hard boiled eggs from some unknown rogue. They had a butcher shop the largest in town to prepare steaks, roasts, fish and fowl in for the kitchen. Chew Kee was the head cook and he could keep 200 orders in his head, as fast as waiters could bark them at him, and never mix an order up! He had helpers who could do just as good.
Handley and Sinnott were great story tellers and in describing the spring salmon runs to eastern tourists they said, "the salmon comes up the Columbia river so thick you can walk across the river on their backs! and in the early days when we first came here wild hogs used to go down to the river and eat the salmon during those runs and do you know that it took 3 generations to breed out the salmon taste in their off-springs!" Handley and Sinnott were hotel men before they came to The Dalles.
A luxurious location
Sinnot and Handley were the hosts for many notables, including Ulysses S. Grant, Vice-President Schuyler Colfax, General W.T. Sherman, John L. Sullivan, Mark Twain, Thomas Alva Edison and his wife, and George Francis Train, who’s motto was ‘Round the World in 80 Days, a feat which he accomplished in days when travel was not as easy. The Umatilla was located where the current US Post Office in The Dalles now stands.
The hotel did an immense business. It employed as many as 16 waiters and 12 cooks and the dining room seated as many as 250 people. Handley was enormous and at meal times he dragged a special chair to the door of the dining room and acted as cashier. Meals were 25 cents each to regulars, meal and a room were $1 a day or $20 a month. To traveling men, meals were 50 cents and $2 for room and board. The hotel took in hundreds of thousands. Sinnott kept $13,000.00 in the safe at one time. It was said there were poker games when there would be $10,000 on the table at one time.
Genuine birds’eye maple may be found in the woodwork, gold framed mirrors stand in the corner of this one room. this mirror must have cost hundreds at the time of purchase. Paintings once graced the walls. A huge roll of leather upholstery that once surrounded a pillar in the lobby and provided a back rest for an equally luxurious leather cushion. The keyboard has pendent mallard ducks. Oil paintings of Mt. Hood, the Columbia River and the Elk standing at Bay and of the lady on horseback wearing the voluminous riding breeches.
There were lamps in every room and lobby, the bar and dining rooms each had a huge stove. The basement had a huge storeroom for liquors and cigars, guarded by 2 huge brass padlocks as large as saucers. The Amber cocktails were famous. This was an insidious drink which slid down with smoothness, but 2 cocktails were sufficient to make the imbiber feel like a millionaire.
Under the railing of the sidewalk down a steep bank and under the hotel was the basement. Ice was brought in by horseback. The hotel had ice cut on the river during the winter and stored it under the building and at the rear in sawdust filled rooms.
The cellar at times held as much as 2500 gallons of whiskey. Major Handley and Tom Kelly, the bartender, would go down to the basement and open a 100 gallon barrel of hundred-proof whiskey. They would put in a gallon of glycerine and four gallons of water. During the process, they would continue to taste the whiskey to see if it was “right.” Generally, by the time it was “right”, Handley and Tom would be flat on the floor. As this was a daily occurance, Sinnot would send someone down in the basement just before meals and train time to wake Handley. Sinnot drank very little, putting a few spoonfuls of whiskey in a glass of water when he imbibed.
Enormous quantities of beef, ham and bacon were bought, hundreds of dozens of eggs were in the store rooms, entire garden crops were bargained for the dining room. Ice was from Mt. Adams. Prices in those days were moderate. Wood was $2.50 a cord. Flour was $2.5 a barrel. Salmon were from 10 cents to 25 cents each. Chickens $2.50 a dozen. Fruit came at 25 cents a box, bacon 10 cents a pound, beef from 8 to 15 cents a pound and butter 20 cents.
They would buy several hundred dozen eggs packed in oatmeal in the fall. Once Sinnot & Handley bought 300 dozen eggs and stored them away, and when Chew Kee went to use them, he found they were all hardboiled. They sold to fish by Matt Peasley; they exchanged practical jokes. Judd took a display egg to the bartender, Tom Kelly. He broke it open, saw it was fresh. He bought the eggs for 4 cents a dozen and hauled them 50 miles. Chew Kee, the Chinese chef, tried to crack it open on the fry pan and it bounced away and rolled across the floor. “Don’t you know what is the matter with this egg, Chew?” “No, me no sabbee.” Boss put egg on a meat block and whacked it in two parts with a butcher knife. “That goggled eyed yap boiled those eggs. He did it to get even with me for a gag I once pulled on him.”
Sinnot often recounted how the Columbia River was often so full with salmon that it was possible to walk across the river on their backs. He also said they crowded each other out on the banks of the river, died, and decomposed. Wild hogs came down out of the hill and ate them. It took 3 generations to get the taste out of the hog meat so it was fit to eat.
Nicholas Sinnot and Dan Handley
Nicholas Sinnot and Dan Handley were both were Irishmen. Handley was Catholic. Handley lived in Room 11.
Both Hanley and Sinnott were from Ireland and possessed a high degree of the spirit of hospitality. Sinnott was a "black republican" while his partner was a "dyed-in-the-wool democrat". Handley weighed over 300 pounds and was a liberal patron of his own table and bar.
Col. Nicholas B. Sinnott married Mary Brass on June 17, 1865 in San Francisco. She was beautiful and stately and he used to take her out to dinner every day in the Umatilla House. Col. Sinnot had a scrumptious sense of humor. He needed it to offset the somber mood of his partner, who took life too seriously.
Nicholsen was the steward, his brother the night clerk.
Major Daniel Handley died in 1891 and the following year the Umatilla House was purchased by Judd Fish. In 1909 the hotel Dalles was opened and the Umatilla House became only a historic memory. In 1906 Tom N. Crofton took it over and it dwindled until it was only a reminder of the days that it once was, when its fame was nation-wide and The Dalles was the "biggest little city in the west." In its better days it was a rendezvous of political parties, conventions holding sessions a week at a time both day and night. The political future of WASCO COUNTY was built up and carried through in this hotel. Col. N.B. Sinnott was a staunch republican and an authority on the political situation in the state and in forecasting election results and acts of congress. It was there that Congressman N.J. Sinnott spent his boyhood and got his political training. Col. Sinnott endeavored to be at the desk on the arrival of all stages, boats and trains to welcome the incoming guests with true "western hospitality." The good colonel was known far and wide for his remarkable ability for impressing the appearance of people upon his memory, so that even years afterwards, should he meet the guest again he could recall the name of the person and where and when he had met them! Col. Sinnott died in 1897.
Major Daniel Handley was a noble man with his heart in his hand and he had the same smile for the rich and poor alike. A man's word was as good as a deed in those days and when Judd Fish took over the management of the hotel he found notes to the extent of $16,000 for hospitality they extended to miners and pioneers of the west who were unable to pay for their meals and lodging at the Umatilla House! Often they took in the stranger who was sick and broke and just as often they paid in full when their health was restored.
Dan Handley died in 1891 and Judd Fish acquired the hotel in 1892. He put in steam heat, electric lights, removed the veranda in 1895 and sold it to Tom Crofton in 1908. It was torn down in 1929. The old Umatilla House was used every year in the Legion Frolics parade was built by August Wintermier of The Dalles at a cost of $1600. [2]
[3] UMATILLA HOUSE.-Messrs. Handley & Sinnott deserve special notice for their pluck and enterprise. Early in 1879 they commenced the erection of a large building adjoining the old Umatilla House, and intended as an addition therein. In that year both structures were burned to the ground, entailing a loss of $35,000 or $40,000, with no insurance. Scarecely had the smoke died away, when preparations were made for another and better building, which was fitted up with every modern convenience, and occupied as a hotel on the 25th of October, 1879. This house has twenty suits of rooms, fitted up with walnut and ash furniture, together with a stove in each suit. There are 140 rooms in all, including five large ones, especially adapted for commercial travelers, having shelving and every necessary convenience. Connected with the hotel is the finest billiard hall on the North Pacific coast, and containing four Brunswick & Balke tables. [3]
• Sources
[1] History of Wasco County, Oregon by Wm. H. McNeal
[2} The Umatilla House by Fred Lockley, Oregon Journal
[3] The resources of Oregon and Washington, Volume 4, Issue 1, p. 73. (Google Books, University of Michigan).
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