Abandoned Hotel in Louisiana

McNeely Hotel, Many Louisiana

Date added: August 31, 2023 Categories: Louisiana Hotel

Named for the commander at nearby Fort Jesup, Many was founded in 1844, one year after the creation of Sabine Parish. However, settlers had been in the area since 1830, when William Mains moved his family to the region from Mississippi. Although the nearby fort was a more important settlement, the Many site was chosen as the parish seat because of its central location. In December of 1844 a plat showing a courthouse square and eight streets was drawn and lots were placed up for sale. Although churches, businesses, homes, and a lodge hall were constructed, the community did not have its own municipal government until 1878. However, this government was inactive between 1884 and 1898. The population was 147 in 1880. Until the arrival of the Kansas City Southern Railway in 1896, merchants received their goods via steamboats or, after 1885, via the Texas and Pacific Railroad at nearby Robeline. Goods had to be carted to Many from the bayou port and railroad line. By 1901 the town occupied a square mile of territory. The first brick building in town, the Sabine Valley Bank, was constructed in 1901, but most of the town's buildings remained in frame construction. A 1906 fire destroyed three blocks within the business district, and two years later an additional two blocks were lost to fire. The McNeely Hotel was built shortly after the 1906 fire.

Today Many's historic central business district consists of a long street of stores and offices. The street's eastern end is characterized by several large open spaces; Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps show that historic buildings once stood on some of these lots.

The building was owned by the McNeely family from its c. 1906 construction date until the 1980s. In the early 1960s, the family leased the building to Nichols Department Store. An attempt to rehabilitate the structure was made after its sale, but the project failed when the new owner suffered financial problems.

Building Description

A restrained example of the Italianate style, the NcNeely Hotel is a two-story brick structure located on a busy corner site in the central business district of Many, the Sabine Parish seat.

Because of its corner lot location, the hotel is meant to be viewed from the diagonal. Thus, it features two ornamented elevations and a corner entrance. This entrance is marked by a support pillar for the second floor. Tall segmentally arched Italianate windows form an arcade along the upper level of the facade and street side elevation. These arches are emphasized by a thin projecting band of bricks. This band extends slightly beyond the window, then turns downward to join a broken belt course connecting the windows. Smaller Italianate windows, featuring similarly banded segmental arches and prominent sills, pierce the lower portion of the street side wall. The building's other side also contains segmentally arched windows, but this elevation lacks the window heads' projecting bands and the connecting belt course.

In addition to its Italianate windows, the structure has corbeled brickwork along its cornice line, corbeled brick panels on the facade's second level, a second and more pronounced molded brick belt course separating the first and second floors, and first-floor piers with molded brick bases. The windows and doors within the storefront and the cast iron balcony currently attached to the building are not original. A historic photograph provided by a member of the McNeely family indicates that, except for its corner entrance, the original storefront was low key and typical of the period. The original canopy was a canvas awning that could be rolled up and down. It appears that at some time the McNeelys replaced this awning with a fixed canopy that wrapped around one corner of the building. The current cast iron balcony (added during an uncompleted 1980s rehabilitation) follows the outline of this canopy as recorded in the 1929 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map for Many. The McNeelys' historic photo also shows multiple chimneys along the roofline. These provided an outlet for the smoke created by wood or coal-burning stoves which were located in each hotel room. Although the chimneys remain, they have deteriorated to the extent that they are now barely visible above the building's cornice line.

The first floor originally contained two spaces separated by a brick wall. It appears that both spaces were stores. In addition to front entrances, both had side doors located near their rear corners, and these openings survive. During the 1960s two openings were made in the connecting wall so that the spaces could be combined to serve as a large department store.

Except for the surviving portions of the brick wall, some cubbyholes added at the rear during this period, and a surviving tile floor and ceiling also associated with the department store, the first floor has been gutted.

The hotel facilities were located on the second floor, whose plan remains intact. It consists of three parallel ranges of rooms separated by two long front-to-back hallways. There is also a cross hall toward the front. Beaded board ceilings, molded baseboards, and plaster walls survive within some of the second-floor spaces. The above mentioned historic picture shows that the building was originally constructed as a free-standing structure. Architectural evidence suggests that originally a side exterior staircase led to the second-floor cross hall. This door was bricked in when a party wall structure was attached to the hotel's west side sometime before 1929. Several lower-floor windows on the west side also had to be bricked in at this time. Architectural evidence in the form of ghost marks and a bricked-in opening suggests that the original outside stair may have been replaced by one on the exterior rear wall. A one-story masonry party wall structure now adjoins the hotel's rear wall, and a modern, rough interior stairway at the rear of the building provides access to the second floor.