Also known as: Prescott Hotel and Frederick Hotel
Other:
Hotel Antlers Almost Ready. Magnificent New Hostelry to be Opened at Grand Forks on Monday. Grand Forks, N. D. – Monday the 25th will mark the opening of Grand Forks’ new hostelry, Hotel Antlers, with appropriate ceremonies taking the form of an “at home” given by the proprietors, Ike McGowan, formerly proprietor of the Brevort, and M. H. McGowan, of the firm of Johnston & McGowan. The building, formerly the Bartholomew block, a substantial five-story brick structure, has been undergoing extensive alterations, costing, approximately, $15,000. It is unusually well built, the outer and dividing walls all being twenty and twenty-two inches solid masonry. The finishings and furnishings are exceptionally fine. The ground floor is given up to the office, dining room, café and kitchen, providing commodious quarters for each. Beneath a newly erected balcony, double doors give access to a large and tastefully decorated lobby, studded with bulb lights and floored in patterned tile, leading direct to the elevator and thru an arch, to the office. This is a large cheerful room, facing the west and north, floored, as the lobby, in tile and furnished in weathered oak of antique style. To the right of the clerk’s office double doors give entrance to the dining room. This room, said to be the finest west of the twin cities, is finished in turkey red and green burlap in panel effect with finished plate-rail. It comfortably seats fifty people. An immense plate glass window across the entire front provides ample light. Immediately to the rear of the dining room, thru a double doored vestibule, is the kitchen, fitted out under the personal supervision of the chef, O. E. Phelps, formerly with the Yellowstone Park association. The café embraces a large lunch counter, lunch room and booths. The four upper floors and devoted to bedrooms and sitting rooms. The main parlor is solid mahogany. There are, in all, eighty bedrooms, over half the number having private baths. All rooms have individual telephones centering in the hotel office from where long distance connections can be made. The bedrooms are furnished with iron and brass beds and oak and birch dressers, chairs, etc. The basement of the building provides space for six large sample rooms, barber shop and bath, and the engine and boiler room of the block. The office will be in charge of Will Nuremberg, formerly of the Waldorf, Fargo. The hotel will be run entirely upon the European plan. (The Minneapolis Journal, Saturday Evening, May 23, 1903, Page 15)
Hotel Management Changed. Special to The Globe. Grand Forks, N. D., Nov. 14. – Hotel Antlers, the largest in the city, today passed from the management of McGowan Bros. to Mr. and Mrs. William Prescott, of Fargo, who formerly ran the Hotel Prescott in this city. Mr. and Mrs. J. J. Freeman, of Fargo, will be in active charge. (The Saint Paul Globe, Sunday, November 15, 1903, Volume XXVI, Number 319, Page 4)
William Prescott, the well known hotel man of Grand Forks, now manages one of the popular houses of Fargo, fully equipped with all modern conveniences. His house is known as the Prescott, and adjoins the Waldorf. He has also just taken charge of the Antlers at Grand Forks and changed its name to the Prescott, which will also be maintained at a correct standard. (The Saint Paul Daily Globe, Monday Morning, November 23, 1903, Volume XXVI, Number 327, Page 3)
Was Victim of a Terrible Accident. John J. Freeman Crushed to Death on Elevator at Antlers Hotel. Mangled Body Fell From the Third Floor to the Pit in Basement. Mr. Freeman Had Climbed to the Top of the Cage to Instruct an Employee How to Release the Safety Device Which Set the Brake – Elevator Got Beyond His Control When He Started It. John J. Freeman, proprietor of the Antlers hotel, was crushed to death shortly after 8 o’clock last night, his mangled body falling to the elevator pit in the basement from the third floor of the building. It appears that a new elevator boy was in charge of the lift, when a sudden start operated the safety device, setting the brake. Leonard Erickson, the night engineer, was also a new employee, and did not know how to release the brake, and Mr. Freeman took him to the elevator, at the first floor landing, to show him. Both men climbed to the top of the cage, and Mr. Freeman released the device, showing Erickson how it was done.
Mr. Freeman then started the elevator with the cable and it shot upward, beyond his control, and he was unable to stop it. When the third floor was reached Erickson discovered that Mr. Freeman had been caught between the cage and the iron grating and was being dragged in between that and the side of the cage. He was badly frightened and jumped over the top of the cage onto the floor and was not injured. Mr. Freeman was dragged in between the cage and the floor and as the elevator passed the landing his crushed body fell to the pit in the basement below. Night Clerk McGinty knowing that the two men were engaged in fixing the elevator, heard the fall and at once rushed to the basement. He found the body of Mr. Freeman in the pit, but death had been instantaneous. Calling Charles Davis, a barber, from the shop on the basement floor, they together lifted the body from the pit to the floor.
Was Terribly Crushed. The skull was split from the base of the brain to the top of the head, and the sight that met those who ran to the assistance of the injured hotel man was one terrible to behold. The space between the elevator and the landing floors is a narrow one and the life of the unfortunate man was crushed out as he hung suspended nearly a hundred feet above the bottom of the elevator shaft. News of the accident spread rapidly and scores of people visited the scene of the accident even before the body of the dead man had been removed to the rooms of Undertaker McDonald. In the absence of Coroner Matthews from the state, State’s Attorney Wineman delegated Justice McLoughlin to conduct an inquest. The jury empanelled consists of W. W. Fegan, James Bell and Fred G. Wells. After viewing the scene of the accident, the inquest was adjourned to 10 o’clock this morning. While Mr. and Mrs. Freeman had lived in Grand Forks less than two years, they had made many friends, and the suddenness of the announcement that he had been killed was a terrible shock to them as well as to the patrons of the hotel. Mr. Freeman is survived by Mrs. Freeman and one son, Alfred W. Freeman, day clerk at the hotel, who with his wife and daughter have been visiting at Dickinson for several weeks. He was advised a few moments after the accident and it is expected that he received the telegram in time to catch a train that will bring him home this evening. (Grand Forks Daily Herald, Tuesday Morning, August 22, 1905, Page 6)