By Jared L. Olar
Local History Specialist
In this next installment in our series on the group of 19th-century downtown Pekin business cards we’ve been featuring, we will review the history of a hotel that was a downtown landmark for a long period of Pekin’s history: the Illinois Central Hotel, more usually called Central House or Central Hotel.
This hotel did not exist at the time of the 1861 Root’s City Directory of Pekin. In that directory, we find Jacob Scheidel’s meat-market at the site where Central House would later be built. Jacob Portmann (1831-1881), a German immigrant, was the hotel’s first proprietor. Portmann and his wife Catherine (Adami) Portmann (1832-1907) were early members of Pekin’s former German Catholic parish, Sacred Heart, and are buried together in Sacred Heart Cemetery.
Illinois Central Hotel first appears in the 1870-71 Sellers & Bates City Directory of Pekin, which lists: “Central Hotel, Jacob Portman, proprietor, ne cor Capitol and Margaret.” Note that here “Portman” is spelled with one N, while the business card spells the surname with two N’s. However, this same directory’s entry for Jacob Portmann uses two N’s: “Portmann Jacob, proprietor, Illinois Central Hotel, ne cor Margaret and Capitol.”
By the time of the 1876 city directory, Portmann was no longer the hotel’s proprietor. The directory that year shows him operating a saloon at the corner of Greenwich and Logan (Catherine and 10th) in Pekin’s German quarter, Bean Town. The 1876 directory shows that Central Hotel’s proprietors that year were William Oberle (1831-1915) and Peter Euler, fellow members along with Portmann of Sacred Heart Parish.
The hotel had a new proprietor by the time of the 1887 directory, which lists: “Central House, William Lauterbach, propr. 401 Margaret.” Lauterbach (1845-1926) continued at the hotel’s proprietor into the early 1890s, as shown by the 1893 directory, which shows: “Illinois Central House, Wm Lauterbach, propr, cor Capitol and Margaret.”
By the time of the 1895 directory, though, Lauterbach had left Central House and had moved on to become the proprietor of the Columbia Hotel at corner of Fourth and Margaret. (Lauterbach, who has an extended biography in “Portrait and Biographical Record of Tazewell and Mason Counties,” would later become the proprietor of the Windsor Hotel in Pekin. He is buried in Lakeside Cemetery.) Remarkably, Central House isn’t listed in the 1895 directory at all – nor do we find a listing for Central House in the 1898 directory. It seems that the hotel remained closed until the early 1900s.
The hotel reappears in the 1904 directory as “Central House, 333-339 Margaret” – but no proprietor is identified. We find the same thing in the 1908 directory, which lists “Central hotel, 333 Margaret” in the main listings and “Central House, 333 Margaret” in the business listings – but no proprietor is named. It’s the same in the 1909 directory.
The hotel received a prominent, boldfaced listing in the 1913 directory: “CENTRAL HOUSE, THE Phil Marquardt, propr. Sample room and good wagon yard attached. Cor. Margaret and Capitol. Citz. Phone 887.” That listing is repeated almost verbatim in the follow year’s directory, with just the addition of the hotel’s Bell telephone number alongside the Citizen phone number (the numbers were the name for both phone companies).
Philip Marquardt Jr. (1877-1915) had been a bricklayer before trying his hand as a hotel proprietor, but his years as Central House’s proprietor were cut short by his untimely death at the age of 37.
After Marquardt’s tenure as proprietor, we next find Central House being owned and operated by Michael J. McMahon and his wife Maude. Michael J. MacMahon is probably the World War I U.S. Army veteran of that name (1886-1951) buried in Pekin’s Veterans Cemetery. The 1922 Pekin City Directory shows Michael and Maude as co-proprietors of Central Hotel at 333 Margaret St. However, the 1924 and 1926 directories list Maude as the sole proprietor.
With the 1928 directory, we find Central Hotel with a new proprietor, Mrs. Minnie Schneider. Unfortunately, I have not been able to learn anything about Minnie’s family or life history, but she is again listed as Central Hotel’s proprietor in the 1930 and 1932 Pekin city directories.
After that, Central House again changed hands, finally coming into the possession of Nello and Peter Rossi, who first appear as the hotel’s proprietors in the 1934 city directory. In March 2015, “From the History Room” recalled the history of Central House hotel during the tenure of the Rossi proprietorship during the 1930s and 1940s, when Nello Rossi and his wife Isolina welcomed and fed guests at their hotel.
Central House last appears in the Pekin City Directories in 1958, so must have closed about then. It was demolished before 1960. By the 1970s, 333 Margaret St. was the site of Pekin Downtown Motel and Coffee Shop, owned and operated by the late Larry L. Noreuil.
From the History Room 