Historic Poteau Hotel To Get New Life As County Museum By Wanda Freeman

SOUTHWEST TIMES RECORD WFREEMAN@SWTIMES.COM

CORRECTION

This story appeared in the Times Record on Monday, February 18, 2008, and contained an error. The correction that follows appeared in the newspaper after the mistake was discovered:The historic Poteau building that historians are planning to renovate and convert into a museum was named the Lowrey Hotel. In a report on page 1A in Monday’s edition, the hotel’s name was misspelled. The old Lowery Hotel in Poteau has a bright future in which to look fondly upon the past, thanks to an agreement to donate the LeFlore County-owned building to a newly formed historical society.

Built in 1922 on a $32,000 contract, the luxury hotel that once was “the place to stay” and was promoted as fireproof has become a liability and even a fire trap, said LeFlore County Commissioner Freddie Cox. “It’s in deplorable condition. ... We were going to unload the property,” Cox said of the county’s previous plans to sell the building at the corner of Dewey and Witte streets. It currently houses county records and the offices of the OSU Extension Service. But about six or eight months ago, historian Arlene LeMaster approached Cox with another idea: She wanted to renovate the building and turn it into a museum. “It was a very important part of the development of LeFlore County,” LeMaster said of the Lowery. “It was a three-story hotel, and it had modern conveniences that nothing else had. It was a place where important people who were used to better things could come.” While a nearby bakery had a dirt floor, LeMaster said, the Lowery boasted indoor bathrooms and steam heating. The front lobby, now filled in on the second floor, was two stories tall.

Cox said LeMaster and Susan Jenson, Main Street Matters program manager, attended the county commissioners’ meeting in January and made their case for taking over the historic structure. The commission agreed to give the building to them if they formed a nonprofit organization and created a LeFlore County museum. “We’ll declare it as surplus property,” Cox said. “We told them they can have it as soon as their IRS papers are done and they have 501(c)3 tax status.” LeMaster, who was active with the broader-based Eastern Oklahoma Historical Society, took the lead in forming the more-local LeFlore County Historical Society. “There are a lot of rooms in the hotel. We plan for each small town in the county to adopt a room and put their history in the room,” she said. Jenson said they obtained a grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation that was matched by the Eastern Oklahoma Historical Society, and used the money to obtain a study of the building by Fort Smith architect Paul Hill of the Hill Group. “He has designed a lot of buildings in LeFlore County,” Jenson said. Hill has found the building structurally sound, LeMaster said, but the roof is an immediate concern and will have to be addressed first. Jenson said much of the interior is “campy,” with all the bathrooms tiled in unusual colors that were stylish in their day but not so much now. “They bought out a closed-down tile company and used all the surplus tiles to do the bathrooms,” she said. The hotel was built of steel and concrete instead of the more common wood frame, and at one time the Lowery advertised itself as fireproof with a big rooftop sign that is visible in one of the few historic pictures available, Jenson said.

So far, LeMaster and Jenson said they haven’t found much documentation on the Lowery and have relied on the memories of town elders such as F.L. Holton, who was a small child when the hotel was built. A brief item in the Poteau News dated July 14, 1921, announced that a contract was let for the building of a three-story hotel at a cost of $32,000. But no one seems to know when the Lowery ceased operating as a hotel. Over the years, space in the building has been rented to barbershops and other businesses. Cox said there was a used-clothing store as a tenant at one time. Jenson said it might have served as a dormitory for students at Carl Albert Community College.

Cox said the OSU Extension Service would move out of the building and into the county annex, but the county records will take many months to move. Jenson said she is considering possibly moving the Main Street Matters office into the Lowery when the building is ready. “Right now we’re trying to quantify how much time it will take to work on the building itself, not the museum,” she said.

Greenlit for renovation — The building which formerly stood as the Lowrey Hotel is the future site of the LeFlore County Museum. Students from the University of Arkansas have developed a web site that will display upcoming events, recruit new members and make special announcements. A group of students from the University of Arkansas, Fort Smith have been working on developing a web-site for the LeFlore County Museum. Craig Geren, Wes Powell, Shad Adkins and Debbie Cepeda made a presentation on Wednesday to members of the LeFlore County Historical Society showing the progress of the project which they have been working on this past semester. The students are working on a degree in Information Technology and the project was one of the requirements for the degree. The purpose of the presentation was to give the society an opportunity to review the progress to date and to make decisions on changes and additional information that will be presented on the web-site. The web-site will be used to announce special events and activities, displays and contributors as well as recruit new members and supporters. The LeFlore County Historical Society continues to develop plans for the creation of the LeFlore County Museum. The museum, which will be located in what was once the Lowrey Hotel, is located in downtown Poteau. The museum will house artifacts and other items that will depict the history and culture of LeFlore County. Plans are to restore the bottom floor of the building and re-establish it as a cafe and coffee shop while the second and third floor rooms will be renovated to reflect the history of LeFlore County. It is hoped that every city within the county as well as the various chambers of commerce and other special groups such as veterans and others will make contributions of historical items as well as recollection of events so that each room will depict a different time period and display a different theme. The Historical Society membership is open to anyone who would like to join. Once the web-site is up and functioning a membership application will be available on-line. However, in the interim The Historical Society can be contacted at (918) 647-8648 or stop by their offices located at 301 Dewey, Poteau, in the Historic Lowrey Hotel.

Prepared by: General Resource Services