National Register Listing

Hotel Turkey

Jct. of 3rd and Alexander Sts., Turkey, TX

The 1927 Hotel Turkey is a product of sudden, yet modest, commercial development in small-town Texas. The building is significant at the local level in the area of Commerce, as an example of a typical hotel built in response to a then-growing community. Also in the area of Architecture, Hotel Turkey is a modest example of Prairie School-influenced design. The 1927 to 1941 Period of Significance encompasses the initial construction of the building as well as the evolution of its role in Turkey's commercial development through the National Register 50-year cut-off date. Operating continuously since its construction, Hotel Turkey provides lodging and services to travelers and local residents.

Until the arrival of the railroad, the sparsely populated county's local economy remained dependent primarily on ranching with most residents employed at large ranches--the Mill Iron, the Shoebar, the ZC, and the Bar 96. In 1888, the Fort Worth and Denver City Railroad Company [FW&DC] main line traversed the northeast edge of the area that would become Hall County, connecting Fort Worth and Denver, Colorado. The county was officially organized in 1890, and its 203 inhabitants voted to establish the tiny town of Memphis at the far northeast corner of the county as its seat. With the railroad and a local government in place, the county began to experience prosperity comparable to that of others across the Panhandle. Farm families, lured by cheap land and fueled by the promises railroad advertisements and land promotion brochures devised, began to arrive. The large ranches were gradually dissolved and sold, as was land formerly leased from the state.

A post office named Turkey was established in 1893, where a settlement called Turkey Roost had existed for several years. In southwestern Hall County, Turkey flourished because of the region's dynamic agricultural prosperity, mostly based on grain crops. But wealth did not last long in Turkey; the post office was discontinued in 1895. However, it did reopen in 1900 (as the county's population grew to 1,660) and an 18-block townsite was platted in September 1907.

Paralleling agricultural production across the Panhandle, with cotton now the leading crop, yields in Hall County increased steadily during the 1910s and 1920s. In particular, World War I demands for cotton products served to stimulate output. The swelling population in the county reflected local growth that supported increasing production; from 1,660 in 1900, to 8,279 in 1910, to 11,137 in 1920, the population (relatively) surged.

The Burlington (Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad Company) System had obtained the FW&DC in 1898 and with its subsidiaries extended, acquired, and built several railways in Texas through the 1930s. In the 1920s, the Burlington System, nicknamed in Texas the "Denver Road," was interested in expanding across the Panhandle for two reasons. A continued rise in cotton production after World War I offered an opportunity to service this growing market with an extended rail network. And the Panhandle and Santa Fe Railway Company, also with a mainline through the Panhandle, had been profitably expanding branches since 1920. The Burlington System was anxious to compete in these markets and, in 1925, the company began investing in what would total more than a $7 million expansion of its lines to reach and service this rapidly developing region. The State of Texas approved a charter on 8 November 1926 for another Burlington system subsidiary company, the Fort Worth and Denver South Plains Railway Company, one of the last major railroad building projects in Texas.

In anticipation of the railroad, Turkey was incorporated in 1926, and in the spring of 1927 H.B. Jordan of Plainview began building a hotel on part of three lots (Lots 4, 5, and 6, Block 16 of the Original Town of Turkey) that Hall County pioneer T.W. Bell owned. In September 1927 Bell deeded parts of these lots (the south 50 feet of Lots 4 and 5 and the west 25 feet of the south 50 feet of Lot 6) to Jordan. It is not clear what Jordan paid for the land, but it appears that Bell did not retain any interest in the hotel. Jordan had the hotel built with materials from the Fulton Lumber Company in Plainview, approximately 50 miles east southeast. The local newspaper, the Turkey Enterprise, monitored the progress of the building, stating that the completed hotel would "give Turkey one of the most modern, up-to-date hotels in this section of the state." On 12 June 1927, the building was partially complete when a tornado leveled it. Construction resumed shortly thereafter, and Hotel Turkey opened for business in November 1927.

A two-part commercial block building, as characterized by a horizontal division that distinctly separates the two levels, the hotel bears minimal Prairie School-influenced detailing. More typically found on residential properties, Prairie School design is generally defined by a square, 2-story building with a 1-story porch supported by massive, square piers; wide, overhanging eaves (usually on the main roof, but in this case on the porch roof), and an emphasis on horizontal lines, like the brick pattern. popular prior to World War I, the Prairie School style originated in the Chicago area and was widely published in pattern books and magazines.

Most
Connecting with the FW&DC main line near the Red River at Estelline, about 30 miles northeast of Turkey, the new 204-mile system of Burlington branch lines stretched southwest through the region, with stops at Turkey, Quitaque, Silverton, South Plains, Sterley, Plainview, Dimmitt, Lockney, Petersburg, and Lubbock, the end of the line. The Fort Worth and Denver South Plains rails arrived in Turkey in November 1928, building its depot about three blocks from the new hotel. Increased accessibility to rail transportation bolstered the local cotton economy and the general wealth of the community, which by now included the depot, a cotton gin, a cotton compress, a large school, several residences, and a West Texas Utilities powerhouse. The business district had retail stores of all descriptions, four lumber yards, a blacksmith, a bakery, a post office, and Hotel Turkey.

The "modern" hotel was a necessary accouterment to service the community's need to house traveling businessmen, cotton brokers, ranchers, railroad workers, drummers (salesman), and prospective settlers. Drummers, as salesmen were known, showed their wares to Turkey's retail merchants in the hotel's "sample" room or used the hotel as a base of operations for door-to-door sales of goods as diverse as fruit trees, encyclopedias, bananas, photographs, and lightning rods. Advertisements in the Turkey Enterprise touted "The Hotel Turkey: As Good As the Name," and emphasized amenities "for the convenience of the traveling public." The hotel provided lodging, meals, and a place to conduct business, whether its patrons arrived by train or automobile.

The hotel also became a social center for the community. Dances, banquets, and other social gatherings took place in the dining room and lobby, as did meetings of social and civic organizations. Typical of these social activities was the Turkey High School Senior Class and Football banquet held soon after the hotel opened. The newspaper reporter noted the tables "laid in the form of a 'T" and "decorated in the football colors of purple and gold, and senior class colors of orchid and pink."

Hotel promoters had envisioned that the hotel would play an increasingly important role in the community as Turkey grew and prospered. However, Turkey's population peaked at 1,500 in 1928, and the effects of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl prevented the community from successfully evolving as its civic boosters had envisioned.

The financial disaster of 1929 did not immediately impact the Texas Panhandle, and Hall County's population peaked at 16,966 in 1930. Agricultural prices had begun to decline during the last years of the 1920s, so area farmers were already confronted with financial difficulties, but the Depression provoked problems of a larger, more precipitous, scale. Between 1929 and 1932, the price of wheat fell an average of 61 cents per bushel, and cotton more than 11 cents per pound.

More devastating were the mammoth dust storms that swept the Panhandle region during the early to mid-1930s. The manifestation of continuous land use coupled with serious drought and strong, enduring winds reduced the region to a wasteland. Throughout these perils, Hotel Turkey managed to survive, lodging government officials and businessmen.

Change continued and in the late 1930s and early 1940s small and tenant farms were consolidated into large mechanized operations. Marginal agricultural land was taken out of production and reverted to rangeland, a use requiring fewer workers. And many families left the farm to fill the demand for both soldiers and defense industry workers during World War II. The ensuing out-migration of agricultural families altered the economy in Hall County and the region. The county's population dropped from 12,117 in 1940 to 10,930 in 1950 and Turkey's inhabitants numbered only 930 in 1945. Such a decline impaired local trade centers like Turkey, yet the hotel continued to keep its doors open. Even through the post-World War II years, an era when many small-town hotels closed permanently, Hotel Turkey remained open. Forty miles away from any other hotel, it continued to fill a need for the community.

The building has had several owners. In September 1988, Scott and Jane Johnson purchased and restored Hotel Turkey, retaining the building's architectural and historic integrity. Worthy of preservation, Hotel Turkey continues to service both the community and the traveling public.

Local significance of the building:
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1991.