Will Aberdeen Get a Grand Hotel or Just More Offices?
Prominent developers W. P. Book and Samuel Benn are ready to construct a massive, fireproof building on Heron Street, but the ultimate purpose of the structure remains a local question.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
There is a magnificent structure going up on the corner of Heron and I streets, to be three stories high and 75x130 feet. The building will be of brick, iron and stone, and as nearly fireproof as it is possible to make it. It will be built by W. P. Book and Samuel Benn. Bids will be opened for preliminary work within ten days, and the building has passed the talk stage and reached the do. The building will be used for store buildings and offices, unless the people of Aberdeen are sufficiently anxious for it to be a hotel. If they want it to be a hotel, the builders will make them this proposition: The hotel to be furnished with money raised by subscription, and all profits earned by the building over $1,500 a year for the next five years, to be divided pro rata among the subscribers. Shall it be simply a business block or a first-class hotel? What do the people say?
“The building has passed the talk stage and reached the do.”
Development proposals in 1891 Aberdeen often relied on local subscription and community buy-in, reflecting the speculative 'boomer' spirit of the era. This site remains a critical downtown corridor today, illustrating how private commercial interests once sought to anchor the town's identity in fireproof brick and mortar.
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