Hotel de Paris (Georgetown, Colorado) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Hotel de Paris
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Hotel De Paris Georgetown
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 Location in Colorado
Location in the United States
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| Location | 409 6th St., Georgetown, Colorado |
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| Area | 9.9 acres (4.0 ha) |
| Built | 1889 |
| NRHP reference No. | 70000154 |
| Added to NRHP | April 28, 1970 |
The Hotel de Paris is a famous old hotel and museum in Georgetown, Colorado. It stands on 6th Street, right across from the Georgetown Town Hall.
A French immigrant named Louis Dupuy first opened the hotel in 1875. It quickly became known for being very fancy. People loved its luxury and the amazing French food it offered. This was during the time when the Colorado Silver Boom made Georgetown a busy mining town.
Today, the Hotel de Paris is a popular place for tourists to visit. It's special because its inside looks almost exactly as it did long ago. It has over 5,000 items from the Victorian era, and 90% of them are original from Louis Dupuy's time. In 1954, a group called the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America bought the hotel. They have run it as a museum ever since.
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Meet Louis Dupuy, The Founder
The Hotel de Paris was created by Louis Dupuy. He was born Adolphe François Gerard in France in 1844. As a young man, he studied to become a priest but later went to cooking school.
Dupuy moved to the United States in 1866. He worked briefly as a writer in New York City. However, he was caught copying someone else's writing and selling it as his own. After this, he joined the US Army. The army sent him to Cheyenne, Wyoming, to work as a desk clerk.
For reasons we don't know, he left the army soon after. He changed his name to Louis Dupuy and walked all the way to Denver, Colorado. There, he became a mining reporter for the Rocky Mountain News in 1868. His job brought him to Georgetown, which was a busy mining town. Dupuy then became a miner himself.
In 1873, he was hurt in a mine explosion near Silver Plume, Colorado. The people of Georgetown helped him raise money. This allowed him to rent a bakery and two small buildings. He turned these into the Hotel de Paris.
The Hotel's Story
The Hotel de Paris first opened its doors on October 9, 1875. Louis Dupuy designed it to look like a French inn from his hometown. Staying there cost $4.00 a night, which was a lot of money back then!
When the Colorado Central Railroad arrived in 1877, Georgetown grew even more. This helped Dupuy's business a lot. By 1881, he bought more land and added four new hotel rooms. He also built an outdoor laundry area.
Dupuy made sure his hotel had the newest features. It had gaslight, which was later changed to electric lights in 1893. It also had warm radiant heating. Every room even had washbasins with hot and cold running water.
Dupuy was both the hotel owner and the chef. He used his cooking skills to offer very fancy French meals. The hotel also had a special wine cellar. It was filled with fine wines, champagne, and other drinks.
Building and Features
Dupuy made big additions to the hotel in 1878, 1882, and 1889. These changes made it the large 7,000-square-foot building you see today. With the last addition, he covered the outside with a special plaster. It was painted to look like fancy stone blocks, giving the hotel a smooth, uniform look.
He also built a new kitchen and made the restaurant bigger. The dining room became the most impressive part of the hotel. It had beautiful floors made of silver maple and black walnut wood. The dishes were fine Haviland China from France.
Dupuy spoke four languages. His study had over 2,500 books in French, English, German, and Latin. Guests could borrow these books. All these books are still kept at the museum today.
The hotel also had three special areas called galleries. Traveling salespeople used these to show their goods to local people.
Famous Guests and Later Years
Some well-known people stayed at the Hotel de Paris. These included railroad investor Jay Gould, photographer William Henry Jackson, and English explorer Isabella Bird.
The hotel was most successful in the early 1890s. But in 1893, the Panic of 1893 caused silver prices to drop. Georgetown's economy, which depended on mining, never fully recovered.
In 1892, a fire damaged a nearby opera house. The hotel had only minor damage. In October 1900, Louis Dupuy died after being sick with pneumonia. His housekeeper, Sophie Gally, took over the hotel. She also died not long after.
In 1903, Sarah Burkholder bought the hotel. She and her daughter, Hazel McAdams, turned it into a boarding house. Even after Dupuy's death, the local newspaper called the hotel "famous the world over." It was still known for its great food and comfortable rooms. The Burkholder family owned the hotel until 1954. After business slowed down, they sold it to the Colonial Dames of America.
The Museum Today
The Hotel de Paris museum opened in 1954. It offers guided tours in different languages. In 1970, the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places. This means it's a very important historic site. In 2007, it was named a site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
To celebrate the museum's 60th birthday in 2014, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper made May 24 "Hotel de Paris Day" in Colorado.
