All Good Things Must End

[John and Elizabeth Carlson, proprietors of the City Hotel, raised their twin daughters and son in the hotel along with John Kupp, Elizabeth’s son from her first marriage. As the children grew, they helped out with the hotel’s operation.]

Daughters Elizabeth (Bessie) and Catherine (Katie) managed the hotel dining room but that did not interrupt their educations at the Convent of Notre Dame in San Jose, nor the many parties with their friends during vacations. On their [17^th] birthdays in April 1877, the editor of the Weekly West Coast Star ran this account: “Talk about your sociables, but didn’t they, young and old, have a sociable time at the Misses Katie and Bessie Carlson’s birthday party last Monday evening. There were 25 ladies in attendance and about double the number of gentlemen. All enjoyed themselves in the highest degree. A luncheon was served about 11 o’clock, during which time a pleasant hour was passed, and then dancing was resumed. It was near 2 o’clock when all dispersed, all well pleased, and all wishing the young ladies many happy birthdays.”

In 1882 the young women were married to two prominent young Mendocino men. Bessie married Captain Henry Nelson, and Katie married James Nichols. Nelson purchased the Wilson Hotel property on Main Street in 1888, and James Nichols was the partner in the general merchandise business of Jarvis and Nichols at the time of his marriage. Four years later, in March, 1886, John Edwin “Eddie” Carlson married Elizabeth Riordan. John Kupp, Elizabeth Kupp Carlson’s son, had married Helen Green on July 13, 1873. He was several years older than his Carlson half-sisters and half-brother.

In the Beacon of September 9, 1882 a small notice announces the senior Carlson’s retirement: “J. E. Carlson has left hotel keeping, leased (the) City Hotel and stables and sold the stock to his son Eddie and Mr. Kupp.”

The new lessees continued the reputation of the hotel dining room, as this notice attests: “The Carlson Hotel also known as the City Hotel reported that on July 4th, 1884, 350 guests were served and 150 horses were stabled. Curried lamb stew will be served every Sunday.”

The elder Carlson was 57 years old now and a widower; Mrs. Carlson had died in November of 1880 after being plagued with rheumatism during her last years. His daughters had left home after their marriages, and only Eddie was left to manage the hotel with his half-brother John Kupp.

[The hotel thrived under John and Eddie’s management, but J. E. Carlson once again became the innkeeper following John Kupp’s death in 1887 and Eddie’s decision to move to San Francisco. In 1890, Carlson again leased out the property, but the hotel never recovered. In 1894, the Bank of Mendocino foreclosed on the property, which was later purchased by William Heeser.

J. E. Carlson died at the San Francisco home of his son on April 16, 1899 and was buried in Mendocino’s Evergreen cemetery. The Reverend John S. Ross officiated at the burial service.]

Raymond Rasmussen took care of the hotel property after the Carlsons relinquished it. It is reported that in its final active days the hotel was adapted into apartments. Miles Paoli remembers that his father, Rafaello Paoli, told him that in 1905 the family lived in the Carlson Hotel for three or four months.

And finally in the Mendocino Beacon was the account on February 3, 1917: “The old City Hotel building which recently came into the possession of the Mendocino Lumber Co. through an exchange of property between the Company and A. A. Heeser is being dismantled by the Company.”

Only the water tower stands as a memorial to this once imposing edifice.

Part 3 of 3; excerpted and annotated from “Mendocino’s Hotels & Saloons,” by Dorothy Bear and Beth Stebbins. Mendocino Historical Review, June, 1980. Part 1; Part 2.

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