College Inn Bar

The College Inn Bar holds a distinguished place in the annals of American saloon history. While most drinking establishments along the western reaches of late 19th century America were rather ramshackle affairs—where the liquor was the sole attraction—the founder of the College Inn, one Theodore Pringle, had his building tailor-made to accommodate his customers in style. Built in 1906, for around $15,000 (nearly $300,000 at current prices), Pringle obtained fixtures and furnishings of the highest quality—including an intricatelycarved mahogany backbar with a marble slab top, and a Brunswick-Balke drinking bar imported from Chicago. Ornate, free-standing mahogany arches equipped with swinging doors of stained glass defined the front and rear entrances to the barroom. The floor was finished with rugged, decorative tile made from a compound of pure, finely-ground marble. A lounge adjacent to the barroom accommodated ten drinking booths, defined by mahogany dividers six feet tall, sporting heavy draperies suspended from fat brass rods; the booths included “call buttons” recessed into the adjoining wall, which was sheathed with embossed leather. On the second floor were nine sumptuously-furnished sleeping rooms, and a gambling room that was serviced from the bar by a dumbwaiter. Structurally, the main floor is a precursor to the later invention of reinforced concrete: 16 inches thick, it incorporates a grid of 90-pound track rails bound with three-quarter inch steel cables, and is supported on solid brick columns 20 inches square spaced at ten feet on center across the basement. The College Inn continues in business to the present day, making it the oldest business in Douglas history to have operated from the same location. Although its sleeping rooms are no longer in use, many of the original fixtures and much of the vintage decor remain in place throughout the ground floor.