Hotels and other boarding establishments are essential for a growing settlement, offering a rewarding business opportunity for early settlers and a hospitable place to stay for travelers.
Several hotels could be found in historic downtown Lancaster, including the Lancaster Hotel, the Antelope Valley Hotel (later renamed the Gillwyn Hotel and eventually the Western Hotel), the Hannah Hotel, the Lancaster Boarding House, and the Lancaster Inn.
Featured here is a 1913 advertisement for the Lancaster Boarding House. This establishment was located on the west side of Antelope Avenue (now Sierra Highway) between Tenth Street (now Lancaster Blvd.) and Eleventh Street (now Milling St.), in the vicinity of the old Rendezvous Club.
In addition to a comfortable bed to rest in, the Lancaster Boarding House also offered meals made regularly and by special order. Ads such as this one were frequently printed in the Antelope Valley Ledger Gazette.
Also shown here are ads for the Western Hotel (c. 1904), as well as an ad for the Lancaster Hotel (c. 1904). The visible damage to the newspapers was sustained in the 1912 fire that ultimately destroyed the Antelope Valley Ledger Gazette headquarters. This 1912 fire was highly devastating, erasing a majority of the original newspapers archived on the site, leaving only a few and fragmented remains.
"Gurba, Norma H. Lancaster. Arcadia, 2005.
Photo courtesy of MOAH Collections"
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