Main St - 900 block
Contents
- 1 900 Block
- 2 900 Main St - Kossuth Park
- 3 902 Main St - Virginia Apartments
- 4 917 Main St - Elizabeth Apartments
- 5 921 Main St - Robert C. Hazlett House
- 6 923 Main St - Robert C. Woods House
- 7 9xx Main St - Wheeling Marsh Stoggies Building
- 8 948 Main - Wheeling Hotel & Bridge Tavern
- 9 Grant House Hotel
- 10 949 Main - Downtowner Inn
- 11 949-953 Main - Bridge Hotel
- 12 Looking north on Main over Suspension Bridge
900 Block
900 Main St - Kossuth Park
Kossuth Park is a triangle of green just south of the I-70 bridge entrance. Apparently never used (except by eyes welcoming green), it is always maintained, and marked by a bronze plaque connected to a boulder.
On the edge of Kossuth Park is the Historical Marker sign for the town of Wheeling.
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902 Main St - Virginia Apartments
Built 1902; actually condos now.
Image from Ohio County Library. Image is placeholder until I can find mine.
917 Main St - Elizabeth Apartments
921 Main St - Robert C. Hazlett House
1887
Home of the Friends of Wheeling Historical Society.
Built ~1887, architect: E.W. Wells. Hazlett was a surgeon during the Civil War and after and also discovered the first oil well in West Virginia (Pavilack and Fluty, 1990). Friends of Wheeling description.
923 Main St - Robert C. Woods House
Later Jacob Rhodes House
ca. 1839-1845
Wide chimney indicates that this house was built before 1850 (Pavilack and Fluty, 1990). Snake Club (drinking club) now.
Full history
9xx Main St - Wheeling Marsh Stoggies Building
905-915 Market St
Previously the hub of a cigar empire, now a long empty building. Who pays for the sign to be lit?
Around the corner is this side, which stretches all the way to Market St (below):
from 1936 Chamber of Commerce brochure. The nice buildings at bottom left have been torn down, making yet another parking lot for downtown Wheeling...
948 Main - Wheeling Hotel & Bridge Tavern
Built ca. 1926 according to Jon-Erik Gilot
Since 1957 the Bridge Tavern & Grill has filled the bottom floor of this building owned by Pete Dormas and his son George. The Wheeling Hotel that occupied the upper floors has been closed since the 1970s. This is the location of the Wheeling House Hotel in pre-Civil War time, which was a stop on the Underground Railway; ironically only a short block from the slave market at 10th and Market. (Info from Charles Blockson, The Undergound Railway, p 160.) I am confused, for Blockson writes in 1998 that Wheeling House Hotel still stands, but is closed, whereas Gilot states the existing structure was built in about 1926; and the tavern at least was certainly open in 1998. When was the building built?
Grant House Hotel
Back of envelope from late 1800s.
Was this the hotel on the NE corner of 10th and Main before the present Bridge Tavern building was built?
949 Main - Downtowner Inn
1967 postcard documenting the garish Downtowner Inn, from the collection of Chuck Julian. Same building with less colorful front now known as the Wheeling Inn.
949-953 Main - Bridge Hotel
from Ohio Public Library collection
ca 1960 photo of old Bridge Hotel just north of Suspension Bridge; this was demolished in 1961, and replaced with the ghastly Downtowner Inn shown in the previous postcard.