| Marker Text |
This building is a reconstruction of a structure built in 1873 for prominent Galveston merchant John Parker Davie and named the Cosmopolitan Hotel. Davie sold the business in 1878 to John Summers, who renamed it the Washington Hotel after an earlier inn by that name which was destroyed in the Galveston fire of 1877. The J. P. Davie Wholesale Builders' Hardware store occupied the first and fourth floors of the east end of the building. The ground floor of the west end provided space for the hotel restaurant and retail shops. Hotel guest rooms filled the remaining floors of the structure. Located among a number of fashionable inns and shops in the Strand district, the Washington Hotel remained in business for one hundred years. After a number of changes in ownership, renovation of the building began in the early 1980s. A devastating fire on August 25, 1983, however, destroyed much of the historic structure. With only the east wall left intact, the building was rebuilt based on early photographic documentation and surviving architectural elements. |
