Crotwell Family History
Crotwell Hotel
Crotwell Hotel
James A. Crotwell built the Crotwell Hotel in 1879 on Adams Street, a block from the Courthouse Square. (Sometime between 1900 and 1911, Adams was renamed to College Street.) He broke ground in Oct 1879 and it opened in the spring of 1880.
The hotel was three stories, built with bricks from J. A. Crotwell's brickyard. Seventeen iron columns were installed in Oct 1879. "Crotwell Building 1879" was added in bold gilt letters to the front of the building.
It was advertised in 1883 as the only hotel in Newberry with electric bells and cistern water. The cistern would hold 12,000 gallons.
The State newspaper of Columbia, SC ran an article on 12 Dec 1946 titled "Old Newberry Hotel of Many Names Now Modernized and Still Surviving." This article described the hotel when it was built as having the lobby on the first floor. The bedrooms, kitchen and dining room were on the 2nd floor. The 3rd floor had offices and a large hall used for meetings and dances. The rooms had fire places. There were no bathrooms but one zinc bathtub shared by all occupants. There were two outdoor toilets.
When Bell Telephone Company came to Newberry County in 1882, the central office of the Newberry Telephone Exchange was located in the hotel.
The hotel carried the Crotwell name until early 1900s. After that it had several names, including the National Hotel in 1923 and later the Wiseman Hotel in 1935. It was run by a number of different proprietors through the years.
According to the Newberry Observer dtd 14 Jan 1916, Samuel P. Crotwell traded his hotel in Newberry for a large parcel of land in Georgia.
