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By Hannelore Sudermann
One day in the late 1920s, hoteliers Severt W. Thurston and
Frank Dupar met by chance in a coffee shop in Yakima, Washington.
Unbeknownst to one another, each had gone to Yakima to make
separate hotel deals. But by the time they parted company that day,
the two had decided to go into business together. In 1930 they
joined with the Schmidt Brothers, who had hotels in Olympia,
Seattle, and Bellingham, to form Western Hotels Inc., the
foundation of what would become the Westin hotel chain.
That first year they had 17 properties, including the Roosevelt
and Waldorf hotels in Seattle, the Marcus Whitman in Walla Walla,
and the Leopold in Bellingham. The business quickly grew to include
some of the great landmarks of the West, including the Multnomah
Hotel in Portland, the Olympic Hotel in Seattle, the Davenport in
Spokane, and the Sir Francis Drake in San Francisco.
Based in Seattle from 1930 until 1998, Western Inc./Westin
Hotels & Resorts was run by people who had long careers in the
Pacific Northwest hotel business. Some, like Edward E. Carlson,
started at the bottom. From a job as a bellhop at the Benjamin
Franklin in Seattle, Carlson rose to president of the company, and
later became chairman of the state of Washington’s World’s Fair
Commission. Harry Mullikin ’51, who studied hotel administration at
Washington State College, broke into the business as an elevator
operator at the Cascadian Hotel in Wenatchee and worked up to
Westin president in 1973 after Carlson retired.
The papers and photographs of these individuals, as well as many
other Westin treasures, now reside in Washington State University’s
archives. The materials came to WSU through the efforts of J.
William Keithan, who started working for the company at Von’s Café
in Seattle, and retired as a senior vice president. A historian by
nature, Keithan recognized the value of the papers and memorabilia
and made special efforts, even after retiring, to maintain and
protect them. He even stored them in his basement for a time. Some
things he found tucked away in the corporate offices, others he
rescued from a loading dock.
A treat among the materials is the night log for the Multnomah
from 1950 to 1953. In a few brief sentences, the manager captures
some interesting scenes of Portland city life. “It was a real quiet
night. You wouldn’t know the grocers (attending a convention) were
here,” he wrote one evening. “Took two fellows to their rooms, very
drunk,” he wrote a few days later. And then there’s an account of a
guest who sprained her ankle on a small step, and another of a
couple who were fighting and had to be moved to a room with two
beds.
A view into Seattle history can be found in the scrapbooks of
Christine Foreman, who worked in the Olympic Hotel’s grill from
1937 until 1972. Foreman attended WSC during the Depression, but
dropped out because she couldn’t attend school while working.
Through her job at the Olympic Grill, she became a Seattle
institution. For 25 years, men of influence in the city would meet
at the grill for lunch and sit in Foreman’s section. They included
the local head of the U.S. Department of Immigration, attorneys,
newspaper columnists, FBI office leaders, TV station managers,
museum directors, and the head of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce.
Though the group was called “The Table,” it was also known as
“Christine’s Den.” “Chris the waitress is the catalyst who holds
the unlikely dining group together,” noted a 1964 Seattle
Times article.
Other precious pieces of the Westin collection include recipes
from the well-known Trader Vics’ restaurant which was housed at the
Seattle Westin from 1949 to 1991, as well as coffee pots, coasters,
Seattle World’s Fair memorabilia, a key tag from the Shangra-La in
Hong Kong, flatware, even chamber pots from the Multnomah and a
bath mat from the Arizona Biltmore.
Chris Marker ’66 was an officer at Westin’s corporate office in
Seattle. His contributions to the collection include brochures,
vintage post cards, and a menu from a dinner given in E.E.
Carlson’s honor in 1983.
All this might be lost if it weren’t for Keithan, says Charles
Comstock ’52, who finished his Westin career as an officer of
Western Service and Supply, a branch of the company that did
purchasing and interior design for all the hotels. “Hardly anybody
else had any interest in this material,” he says. “But Bill is very
much interested in posterity.”
At its peak, Westin Hotels had 237 hotels around the world. The
brand turned 75 in 2005, and today as a subsidiary of Starwood
Hotels and Resorts has more than 120 properties.
Wanting to find a permanent and useful place for the collection,
Keithan turned to WSU in 1995. “When you have a bunch of junk you
think is relevant, you get desperate for some place to maintain
this material,” said Keithan, who believed WSU would be a good
home, since the hotel chain had so many connections with the
University, particularly through employing so many of its
graduates.
WSU was more than happy to accept the materials, said archivist
Laila Miletic-Vejzovic. “The collection holds so much of the
history of the Northwest.”
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