Mountain Inn timeline

• 1872: Thomas Jennings completed a three-story brick hotel with a capacity of 50 guests, known as the Jennings Hotel. It had a porch in front overlooking Center Street and a lawn on the east side. It was later renamed the Mountain House.

• 1880: A tornado badly damaged the hotel, but it was repaired.

• 1896: Mona and Charles Fierce of Seattle bought the property and renamed it the Oriental Hotel.

• 1901: Margaret Taylor purchased it. Henry Lafayette Baker ran it in the early part of the century. Richard Greer, born in the hotel in 1914 and Baker’s grandson, said each room had its own fireplace. A large dining room could sit 100 people.

• 1923: James Ward Sr. of Fort Smith bought it and named the place the Mountain Inn. He removed the front porch and replaced it with a lobby that brought the hotel building to Center Street. Two years later, Ward built a coffee shop and 62 more rooms on the lawn on the east side.

• 1927: Ward leased the Mountain Inn to Thomas and Melissa Brumfield and their son Roy and his wife Nora.

• 1930: The hotel expanded with the opening of the industrial finance building, or arcade building, in which the Mountain Inn took the top two floors, giving it 36 more rooms.

• 1961: Roy Brumfield and new wife Katherine expanded it again when they built the Mountain Inn Motor Lodge attached to the back side of the arcade building.

• 1994: The Mountain Inn hotel operation closed.

• 2005: The Motor Lodge facing College Avenue and Mountain Street was torn down in 2005. The original portion of the hotel is the oldest structure on East Center Street.