Golden West
Known Name(s)
Golden West
Address
Broadway & Everett Portland, OR
Establishment Type(s)
Hotel
Physical Status
Extant
Detailed History
The construction of the Golden West Hotel was commissioned by George Hibbard in 1892, though at the time it was known as Tremont House. There was a restaurant on the ground floor, and the four stories above it were filled with hotel rooms. Given the time period and the fact that Hibbard was himself white, it is probable that Tremont House only catered to white patrons. In 1896, Hibbard’s hotel was repossessed. The building was bought, leased, or sold by a series of men whose ownership was short-lived; it was during this time that Tremont House was renamed to the Golden West Hotel. Finally, in 1906, the hotel found a long-term owner in Daniel Kunkel. Kunkel hired William Duncan Allen, a Black man, to run the hotel.
Allen was born in 1879 in Nashville, Tennessee. He found railroad work in Canada as a young man but eventually came back to the United States and was living in Portland, Oregon, by 1901. He attempted to open a restaurant in 1902, but that business venture failed. It was Allen’s work as the proprietor of the Golden West Hotel that brought him success and notoriety. For the first time, the hotel opened its doors to African American guests. In fact, between 1906 and the early 1930s, it was the only major hotel that allowed Black patrons and was operated by a Black proprietor.
The early twentieth century was a period of opportunity for those in the hotel business. Portland hosted the Lewis and Clark Centennial and American Pacific Exposition and Oriental Fair in 1905; to prepare, the city cleaned up and invested in new infrastructure. The area around the Golden West Hotel transformed from a “vice” district into a respectable area of town. This shift was good for Allen and the Golden West Hotel in particular because of the area’s association with African American workers and residents. Portland Union Station, a major railroad hub, was a vital employer for Black men, and these workers needed places to stay and recreate between jobs. The Golden West Hotel filled this need by hosting both short-term and long-term residents. The hotel also provided opportunities for local black businesses by leasing out its ground floor. In addition to the hotel lobby, the first floor boasted a candy shop, a barber shop, and the Golden West Athletic Club. The Golden West Café, also located on the first floor, was run by a Chinese man. Thus, the combination of hotel and business center turned the Golden West Hotel into a secular community space for people to socialize and spend time together.
The Golden West Hotel was central to the African American community for nearly twenty-five years before Allen announced the hotel’s closure in 1930. The Great Depression caused financial difficulties, and discriminatory real estate practices ousted many African Americans from the Union Station area. A Black woman named Catherine Byrd attempted to reopen the Golden West Hotel in 1933, but she was not successful. The Golden West Hotel appears in the 1939 and 1940 editions of the Green Book, indicating that the hotel was open at least briefly between the closing of the “new” Golden West Hotel and the opening of the longer lasting Broadmoor Hotel, which operated in the building from 1943 to 1984. Today, the Golden West Hotel building is owned by Central City Concern, an organization that offers residential space to the unhoused and runs an addiction and mental health clinic.
