A look back at a grand old hotel

I wasn’t aware of this longtime landmark on Route 66 in Bloomington, Ill. But Bill Kemp, an archivist for the McLean County Museum of History, wrote an interesting article for the Bloomington Pantagraph about the Tilden-Hall Hotel in the downtown area.

The six-story hotel was at Madison and Washington streets in Bloomington. It opened about 1900, but hit its stride in the 1930s.

In 1932-33, lumbermen and building contractors William Tilden and Charles Hall took on the task of modernizing the building, and under their direction the local architectural firm Schaeffer and Hooten transformed the lobby and other areas into a style best described as Hollywood Moderne. This “new” hotel now offered 150 guest rooms, 40 with a private bath.

The Pullman Coffee shop became a choice spot for downtown office workers while the Pink Elephant tap room (“Where the spirit of fellowship reigns supreme”) pulled in those spending a night on the town. The second floor featured a banquet hall known as the Green Room, and the basement held a “swank” place for luncheons, bridge parties and meetings for local organizations.

The hotel started to decline by the 1950s after Route 66 traffic was realigned to the Veterans Parkway east of downtown. A bank bought the property and razed the building in 1961 for parking.