Gray County Historical Markers Gray County Historical Markers
Page 5
Schneider Hotel, Pampa
(National Register Listing)
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Schneider Hotel, Pampa
Resource Name: Schneider Hotel
Other Name: Pampa Hotel
Address: 120 S. Russell
Certification: LISTED IN THE NATIONAL REGISTER
Narrative: The Schneider Hotel is a multi-storied buff-brick
building with Spanish Colonial Revival influences of the type
popular in the Southwest in the 1920's. The building is an
important part of the Pampa skyline, and was readily visible to
disembarking railroad passengers, its most important customers.
Although the hotel has not operated for many years, the sturdily
constructed building remains in generally good condition. Its
proximity to other substantial brick buildings from the same time
period and brick streets creates unusually cohesive streetscape.
The Schneider Hotel is a flat-roofed, rectangular, brick building
consisting of a five-story central section flanked on each side
by a four-story wing. A basement is located under the entire
structure. The building faces east and is of a rough-textured
buff brick, with dark-brick ornamentation. This contrasting
brickwork provides most of the visual interest of the building.
A row of dark bricks above the raised concrete foundation
delineates the beginning of the brick walls. A string course
consisting of a soldier course of buff- brick between two header
courses of dark bricks separates the first and second stories of
the building, and by its position and visual impact emphasizes
the importance of the first-floor lobby area. The arched windows
of the first floor are outlined in dark brick, as are all other
arched area of the building. Dark brick is used for all window
sills. A wide parapet with diapered brickwork tops the building,
extending around all four sides of the taller five-story central
section and onto the exposed facades of the four-story wings.
Six-over-one wooden windows are used throughout the building.
Those on the first floor are topped by fanlights, but some of
this glass has been painted over. The spacing of the fenestration
is regular. Several of the upper-story windows repeat the arched
motif of the first-floor windows, though fanlights are not
employed. Wrought-iron grilles are found on the first-floor, and
several of the upper-story, windows. Most of the grilles apparent
in historic photos are still in place. The north and south
facades of the hotel are fairly simple, though the motifs common
to the rest of the building are repeated here. The less important
entrances on these facades consist of a single recessed door with
a metal canopy.
The east and west facades of the building are virtually
identical, although the symmetry of the northwest facade is
broken by the attachment of a two- story wing. A one-story porch
with strong Mission Revival influence runs the length of the
central part of the building on each of the two main facades. The
arcaded porch is of the same buff brick as the rest of the hotel,
while its arches are accentuated with darker brick. The keystones
and voussoirs of the arches, the balustrades, and the caps on the
curvilinear gables are of cast stone. The concrete porch floor is
stained and scored to resemble tile. Multi-colored clay tiles on
the porch roof complete the effect, and the portico gives the
hotel the somewhat Spanish look popular in the Southwest in the
1920's.
The interior of the hotel features some detailing of note on the
ground floor and is essentially utilitarian in character on the
upper floors. The lobby has the remnants of its 1920's Colonial
Revival interiors, including paneled piers and ceilings, terrazo
floors, round-headed windows with simple fanlights and Doric
columns in major doorways. The multirun staircase has ornamental
bulls-eye medallions on the newels. Dining room and other public
rooms are plain, as are upstairs bedrooms. The exception is the
bungalow fireplace and bookcase built into the second-floor suite
at the head of the stairs.
The Schneider Hotel building occupies the southern one half of a
block in downtown Pampa bounded by S. Russell on the east, W.
Atchison on the south, S. Frost on the west, and W. Foster on the
north. The hotel's location between the Santa Fe Railroad main
tracks immediately to the south and the Pampa City Hall and Gray
County Courthouse to the north was vital to the hotel's early
success. There are no contributing plans to convert the 102 hotel
rooms to apartments for the elderly.
The Schneider Hotel is one of several buildings in downtown Pampa
which mark the city's first era of growth and prosperity. Built
during the Panhandle oil boom of the late 1920's, the large hotel
anchors the south end of "Million Dollar Row." This
series of structures, built between 1927 and 1930, includes the
Schneider Hotel, the Pampa Fire Department, the Pampa City Hall,
the Combs-Worley Building, and the Gray County Courthouse. This
assemblage of structures dominates downtown Pampa and symbolizes
its leap forward from a sleepy farm town to a bustling oil and
gas center, county seat, and twentieth-century boom town. As one
of the largest private ventures undertaken in Pampa in the
1920's, and as the social center of the city, the Schneider Hotel
was an instant landmark, a position it still enjoys today.
Pampa was established in 1888 as a stop on the Southern Kansas
Railway, a Santa Fe Subsidiary line which extends from the Santa
Fe mainline in Kansas, southwest to Amarillo. Over the next
three-and-one-half decades, Pampa grew to be a ranching and
farming community with a small sphere of influence in Gray
County.
In 1912, Alex Schneider, Sr., arrived in Pampa, purchased the
rambling two-story, frame Holland Hotel, and promptly renamed it
the Schneider. This family-owned business prospered on a modest
scale into the 1920's.
Pampa's fortunes changed in the mid-1920's, and Schneider's would
change along with that of the first city. In early 1925, a
substantial oil discovery approximately five miles south of Pampa
lead to the slow, steady development of the Lefors oil field.
However, in late 1925, the Dixon Creek field opened 25 miles west
of Pampa in Hutchinson County. This field developed rapidly
because one of the early discovery wells, the No. 1 Smith, blew
in at 10,000 barrels per day. By the spring of 1926 the Dixon
Creek field, commonly called the Borger field after the upstart
boom camp of Borger, dominated oil industry headlines; the
phenomenal success of Borger drew investors and drillers away
from the slightly older discoveries near Pampa. However, the oil
boom around Borger degenerated into one of the most tumultuous
and chaotic episodes in modern Texas history. The town soon had
numerous brothels, gambling halls, etc. and was not made stable
until the early 1930's.
While Borger boomed chaotically, Pampa began a relatively steady
growth as an oil-producing center. Various discovery wells in the
Red River breaks southeast of Pampa came between 1926 and 1928.
The oil boom in Gray County gathered momentum during 1927 and
1928, then mushroomed in 1929. Between April and June of that
year, the county's already substantial production more than
doubled, continuing to rise throughout the years of the Great
Depression. This phenomenal oil boom profoundly affected Pampa.
The W.P.A. Guide to the Lone Star State (1940) describes Pampa in
its heyday with these words:
A veritable forest of oil derricks surrounds Pampa...oil
development has converted Pampa into a modern industrial town,
where shops are smart and public buildings new. Raw petroleum
defiles wheat fields, carbon black plants hang a pall of smoke
over the scene, and farmers and ranchmen who come here for
supplies often seem a little bewildered at the quick tempo of
commercial activity (p. 495).
Before Gray County entered a boom period, Alex Schneider decided
to take the plunge and build a major hotel in Pampa. Gambling
that Gray would become a major oil producer and that Pampa would
prosper as an agricultural and petroleum-based trade center,
Schneider initiated construction of a new, large hotel in 1926.
The hotel was owned by a corporation that Schneider formed to
finance the venture. M.C. Parker, an architect who resided
briefly in Amarillo, designed the structure while Charles H.
Sharp served as contractor.
The building was located on a half-block of prime railroad
frontage just east of Schneider's original frame hotel. The new,
modern hotel was an ambitious structure for a town of 1,300
residents. However, Schneider's faith in Pampa was well founded.
Pampa grew from a 1920 population of 987 to 10,470 by 1930,
avoiding the chaos of Borger's development.
The Schneider's hotel was a part of growing Pampa economy. The
new facility opened for business in 1927 and was an immediate
success with both Pampa residents and travelers. Its more than
100 rooms made it a major Panhandle hostelry, rivaling anything
in the region outside Amarillo. Perhaps the only comparable
structure still standing in the area is the Old Hilton Hotel inn
the Plainview Historic District (National Register, 1982), Hale
County.
Schneider realized that a substantial hotel was an important
economic institution in an oil-based economy. Oil company
executives needed suitable quarters, and land men, speculators,
surveyors, drillers and derrick builders would need not only a
place to sleep and eat, but a gathering place. The oil-field
techniques of the time did not rely on attorneys and formal
business arrangement. A handshake, usually over an illegal round
of drinks, was more than enough to get a well drilled or derrick
built. In Pampa, the Schneider Hotel was more than a hotel; it
was an economic nerve center for the Gray County oil industry.
Contacts were made, deals struck, companies formed and fortune
made or lost as a result of negotiations carried out in the
confines of the Schneider.
A decline in the oil industry and railroad travel after World War
II, coupled with changing demographics, contributed to a slow
decline in the hotel's trade. A succession of owners and a name
change could not alter this downward trend. By the early 1880's
the once proud structure stood vacant, a target for vandals and
the elements. Yet, the building's past history and physical
presence have kept it in the public mind. It remains a well-known
local landmark in Pampa, and stands as a symbol of Pampa's
dramatic rise to prosperity during the oil boom era of the 1920's
and 1930's.
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Page last updated on April 9, 2000