Sleep Among History in Kingsland, Slaton, Flatonia, Palestine, and Alpine
There was a time when going home for the holidays meant taking the train. Whether boarding a steam locomotive or the electric interurban, passengers who could afford a ticket enjoyed unheard-of advantages in speed and comfort over horse-drawn coaches and the earliest automobiles.
The service members, scattered family, and traveling salesmen who relied on trains needed places to eat and sleep, leading to a proliferation of railroad hotels in the early 20th century. While most of these hotels have been destroyed or repurposed, a handful across the state, mostly in small towns, preserve the railroad era, when a growing nation was still rooted in local character.
“I think people come here to capture what they feel might be happening in a little town, what they’ve lost in the big cities,” says Jean Mollard, owner of The Redlands Hotel, which opened in 1915 in Palestine, steps from the International-Great Northern Railroad. “Visitors seem to appreciate getting up close and personal with the historical aspects of the building, and even the town.”
Railroads hit their peak in Texas in the 1930s, and train travel flourished until the mid-1900s, when the state began paving rural roads and building the interstate highway system. Though Amtrak still operates three routes in Texas, train travel long ago became an afterthought to cars and airplanes.
Thousands of miles of railroads still crisscross Texas, however, and not far from the rumbling rails, these five historic railroad hotels keep their lights on, shining like locomotive headlamps down nostalgic tracks of the past.
OLLE HOTEL
Flatonia
EST. 1915
THE ANTLERS INN
Kingsland
EST. 1901
in 1901, the austin and northwestern Railroad opened the Antlers Hotel on a bank of the Colorado River just above its confluence with the Llano River. The Antlers catered to tourists seeking a riverside resort in Kingsland, a town of a few hundred residents, while also renting rooms to railroad passengers traveling between Austin and Llano.
The rivers still draw visitors to the Antlers, although today Kingsland has more than 6,000 residents and sits on Lake LBJ, which was formed in 1951 and teems with motorboats and shoreline development. While the surroundings have changed, the Antlers retains a peaceful, timeless feeling, ringed by broad porches and looking out over 5 shady acres that lead to a lakeside park.
A mid-1990s restoration preserved the historical atmosphere of the Victorian rooms outfitted with antique furnishings and various artifacts of the inn’s railroad history. The lobby still displays its original chalkboard train bulletin, and in the Kingsland Coffee shop—a former dining hall—a 1910 photograph captures the Antlers’ staff in front of the hotel with small pecan trees that now tower over the building.
The Antlers also offers lodging in several restored cabooses and cottages that once served the railroad, including a depot originally from Muldoon and an 1880s International-Great Northern Railroad coach that’s been converted into an elegant space with a warm interior of wood and natural light.
The train theme continues at the Grand Central Café, which is set in a Queen Anne home. The café attracts diners not only for filling plates of chicken-fried steak and eggs benedict, but also because the house was the setting for the 1974 horror classic The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The Antlers’ previous owners moved the home to Kingsland from Williamson County in the late 1990s to house the restaurant.
Owners Drew Gerencer and Rick Gregory say they acquired the Antlers in part to maintain the integrity and aesthetic of its historic grounds. As a result, this Kingsland retreat rolls into the 21st century, a reminder of railroad’s romantic heyday.
The Antlers Inn, 1001 King Court.
Rates start at $90.
800-383-0007
theantlers.com
kingslandcommunitycenter.org
HOLLAND HOTEL
Alpine
EST. 1908
EXPANDED 1928
Unusual in Texas today, The Holland Hotel in Alpine not only grew up along the railroad tracks but to this day still sits within a stone’s throw of an active passenger depot. On the hotel’s ground floor, the bay windows of the Century Bar look upon Holland Avenue and the railroad tracks that bisect the town. Every once in a while, you’ll see passengers from the nearby Amtrak depot scurry by, seizing a moment to stretch their legs before jumping back on the train to chug across West Texas.
The Southern Pacific Railroad was Alpine’s lifeline to the world when rancher John Holland built the Holland Hotel in 1908 to serve the cattle business and booming mercury mining industry. In 1928, his son, Clay Holland, hired influential El Paso architects Trost & Trost to design a renovation and expansion that created the hotel as we know it today.
It’s not hard to imagine big-wheel cattlemen smoking stogies and sloshing scotch in the Holland’s expansive lobby, which was restored in the 1980s to its Spanish stylings of stucco walls, wooden crossbeams, and glass chandeliers. During the railroad days, the Holland catered to ranching businessmen, while on the other side of the tracks near the cattle shipping pens, the Hotel Ritchey served blue-
collar cowboys, historian and archeologist David Keller says. The restored Ritchey now houses a bar and café.
“Alpine wouldn’t have existed if it hadn’t been for the Southern Pacific Railway,” says Keller, who wrote Images of America: Alpine. “Any hotel from that early on, before cars supplanted railroads, was essentially a railroad hotel. Those structures are an integral part of the town’s history; they give a sense of the town’s character.”
Alpine character runs deep at the Holland, where cowboys and businesspeople rub shoulders with tourists and Sul Ross State University students at the bar. In the guest rooms, artwork depicts Western scenes such as the desert mountains of Big Bend and cavalry outposts. And if you wait a few minutes, you’re sure to hear the timeless rumble and blasting horn of an approaching train. Don’t worry, the hotel provides earplugs on the bedside table.
The Holland Hotel, 209 W. Holland Ave.
Rates start at $120 for a standard room.
432-837-2800
thehollandhoteltexas.com
visitalpinetx.com/events
THE REDLANDS HOTEL
Palestine
EST. 1915
The Redlands Hotel has been through a lot in its 103 years, but you’d hardly know it when looking at its classical brown-brick façade in downtown Palestine. Built to serve railroad business, the Redlands opened in 1915, signaling Palestine’s transformation from “rustic and uncouth” into “a modern city abreast of the times,” according to a program from its grand opening.
The five-story, 86-room hotel boasted electricity and running water and even hosted the St. Louis Browns baseball team for spring training in 1916 and 1917. But such glamour couldn’t overcome the economic turmoil of World War I. The hotel’s board of directors found a redeemer, however, in the International-Great Northern Railway Co., which needed a new building for its local headquarters. After a hasty remodel, the building reopened in 1919 as an office for hundreds of railroad employees, a function it would serve until 1957.
Fast forward to 1976, the year Jean Mollard bought the dilapidated building with her husband and brother, who have since passed away, and embarked on a project to give the Redlands a new multipurpose life. Forty-two years later, Mollard runs the renovated Redlands as a hotel with 20 suites for overnight and extended stays and retail space on the ground floor, including the Red Fire Grille eatery and bar.
“It wasn’t a plan; it was a journey. We loved old buildings for what they were, and we would put up with the things that were wrong with them,” Mollard says. “It all comes together when you respect the history.”
Historical details, such as the hexagonal floor tiling and old elevator car, complement displays that recall Palestine’s frontier railroad history with black-and-white photos and train memorabilia, such as the sheet music for “I Am Going to Take a Train to Dear Old Dallas Town.”
During the holidays, the Redlands decorates each of its suites with Christmas trees and hands out gifts to the children of guests, many of whom have come for the Texas State Railroad’s Polar Express Train Ride. In this way, Mollard says, the Redlands has come full circle to its original function of serving train business.
“It’s very festive,” she says. “It’s just a different thing than checking into an impersonal hotel.”
The Redlands Hotel, 400 N. Queen St. at the corner with Oak Street.
Rates start at $105.
800-550-5445
theredlandshotel.com
texasstaterailroad.net