The Disappearing Halson Hotel of Mexia (1921 - 22)

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A bit of a Mexia mystery for you...

In April, 1921 there were several front page columns devoted to the exciting new Halson Hotel coming to Mexia. One even featured an architect's rendering of the place. Its cost of $350,000 in 1921 translates to a $5,000,000 cost in 2018.



the hotel with electric elevators would also have a theater on the ground floor and public auditorium on the second.

The feature below goes into great detail regarding the plans, down to the private baths with each of the 28 rooms on the top three floors having "water mixers" for the right temperature and a hook for the shaving strop.



A site was announced the same month, at the northeast corner of Sherman and Main



June 30, 1921, a two page spread includes the six-story hotel as a main selling point for Mexia


But in July, amidst the list of building projects, there is a only short line "the lot has been cleared for the Halson Hotel" and nothing more.


But then it disappears from the papers entirely.

In December, in another list of construction projects, there is no mention at all of the Halson or a six-story hotel:




The following month, in January of 1922, a piece mentioning the plans for the hotel were lost in the big fire, now simply called the "Humphreys Hotel"




The Majestic Hotel, three stories, seems to be the newest hotel in Mexia  in February 1922, and a hot commodity, but the Halson is forever gone from any mention


By March 1922, the "former hotel association" stockholders seem to have converted the money into a four-story brick office and club building, although at the southwest corner of Main & Sherman, which is where the Humphreys oil offices had been located before moving to Dallas 




Curiously, if the lot had been cleared in the summer of 1921 for the hotel that never was, the restaurants and barber located at northeast corner of Sherman & Main remained remarkably in place on the Sanborn insurance maps of 1921 & 1922

1921:


1922
















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