The Unlucky Hotel at Wallula
In the burgeoning town of Wallula, a grand hotel venture is failing despite immense investment, leaving a trail of broken spirits in its wake.
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.
Things were looking bad at Wallula. The big hotel built at such expense appeared to bring ill luck to everyone who took hold of it.
Every man had so far failed and had retired after doing his best.
“The big hotel built at such expense appears to bring ill luck to every one who takes hold of it.”
Wallula was once a critical hub at the confluence of the Columbia and Walla Walla rivers, but like many boomtowns of the 1880s, it struggled to maintain its status. Today, it serves as a reminder of the volatility of speculative development in the Pacific Northwest, mirroring the modern boom-and-bust cycle of commercial real estate in shifting urban corridors.
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