ESCONDIDO – The City of Escondido didn't exist when the Escondido Hotel was completed early in 1886.
Construction of the hotel by the Escondido Land and Town Co. coincided with the company's hiring of a surveyor to plot lots on the acreage formerly known as Rancho Rincon del Diablo.
A fine hotel to house prospective land buyers was a crucial part of the company's plan to develop a thriving community; real estate salesmen were dispatched to lure land speculators and future homesteaders.
The three-story, 100-room hotel was erected on a knoll where the Palomar Medical Center sits today, overlooking the east end of Grand Avenue.
The hotel became a local landmark. Called the Escondido Hotel prior to 1892, it was later referred to as the Hotel Escondido.
"A History of California and an Extended History of Its Southern Coast Counties," by J.M. Guinn, published in 1907, said the hotel was "recognized as one of the very best by its appointments of any in Southern California." Guinn described the building as commanding "on either side views of unsurpassed beauty."
The hotel sat within a 10-acre park "adorned with beautiful shrubbery and a large variety of ornamental trees, while its winding walks and driveways (were) made brilliant and fragrant by the many rows of exotic plants and native roses." A rose-covered veranda, extending almost entirely around the building, was, according to Guinn, "indicative of the comfort to be found therein."
At first, prospective land buyers arrived by stagecoach. After construction of the Santa Fe Railroad depot on the west end of Grand, the Escondido Hotel inaugurated a free shuttle service to and from the depot by horse-drawn, surrey-topped bus.
The hotel and the railroad station became the anchors of a growing Grand Avenue shopping district.
The real estate boom meant a boom in business at the hotel. Within two years of the hotel's opening, 30 rooms were added. The Escondido Times, which regularly reported arrivals at the hotel, noted that on a single day in 1888, 46 people checked in. They came from as far as New York City and Lansing, Mich.
The late Frances Beven Ryan, in her 1970 book, "Early Days in Escondido," describes rooms "furnished with shiny brass knobbed beds, feather mattresses, snowy white sheets, patch work quilts and down pillows with stiffly starched, hand embroidered 'Goodnight' shams."
In the spacious dining room beneath the elaborate lobby stairway, diners sat at tables covered with crisp white linen and set with polished silver, Ryan said. Each table also featured a vase of cut flowers and a basket of Escondido grapes.
For at least its first two decades, the hotel was a center of social life in Escondido. Prominent early settlers, such as Alvin Wohlford and William Pryor, were married there. Parties and dances drew people from throughout the region. The hotel's shuttle bus doubled as an excursion vehicle for "picnic parties" and other local events.
While a nationwide economic depression in the early 1890s put a dent in the local land boom, the hotel continued to be a prime spot for visitors and a social center until 1915. That year, the Panama-Pacific Exposition in Balboa Park spurred an influx of visitors throughout the county. The Hotel Escondido was booked to capacity.
The same year saw the opening of the Hotel Charlotta in Escondido. The more modern Charlotta soon displaced the Hotel Escondido. The number of guests at the Escondido began a steady decline. The Hotel Escondido closed its doors to guests in 1920, and in 1925 the building was demolished.
Vincent Rossi is a Rancho Bernardo-based freelance writer.
