The Grover Hotel


This information about the Grover Hotel was provided to me by the Pawnee Historical Society. We are trying to be faithful to the building's history and may end up painting it the colors that it was originally.

 The hotel was built in 1909, completed in 1910.  It was built using the same bricks as the old Opera house across the street that was being built at the same time.  It was touted as the first building in town with an indoor well (you can see the filled in well in the basement)
  It was built by Ulysses Grant Davis and his wife Mary Davis.  He was known as Grant Davis by the town's people.  But he can also be found in historical records as U. G. Davis and Ulysses G. Davis.  At the time that the hotel was built, the Davis family owned the Grover livery and the Block House.  They lived in a homestead about 6 miles outside of town and owned land with horses and cattle.  Grant was the town constable for a time in the early years.  
  Mary was at the hotel every day to serve food to the guests from the kitchen.  From all accounts, she was a well-loved member of the community.
  Many of the residents of the hotel in the 20s were longer-term residents.  They were said to have "rented an apartment" there as opposed to staying for a night or two.  In the 1910s and 20s, a lot of people were coming to Grover on the train to participate in the land grab.  The families would often stay in the hotel while purchasing their land and building a homestead.
  Grover had its first hospital in one of the older houses on the southwest corner of town.  When the town reached its peak population, the Hotel was used as the town hospital (I don't have the official record of when that change was made but it was between 1933 and 1937).  It remained the Grover hospital until the late 30s or early 40s (again, no specific records).  During that time it was also renting rooms or apartments.  By the late 30s, the Davis family had left the homestead and moved into an apartment at the hotel.  Mary passed away in 1940, Grant in 1942.  
  I don't have a record of the owner after they passed away but I do have records of the Hotel still being used to rent apartments to employees of the school.  It continued being used as apartments for teachers up until 1985.  
  After 1985 (I believe that date is accurate, not positive) the house sat empty for 10 years.  It was purchased by a Grover local in 1995 and made into a bed and breakfast.  That owner also got the house on the historic register.  She named it the Plover Inn after a local bird and made it a destination for local bird watchers coming to the Pawnee Buttes.  The birds painted on the doors represent local birds and each suite was named for the bird.  I have the original flyer in the packet that I will be mailing out this week.  She had the Plover Inn until 2004.  It was then purchased and used as a family home until 2013.

To help you in your search for more information visit the Depot Museum.  There is a picture of Grant and Mary on the porch in their later years.  Grover also had its own newspaper that would be a wealth of information, but unfortunately, that newspaper is not found on any of the old newspaper sites.  It was called The Pawnee Press.  There is one copy that had the Hotel on the cover with the title of "The fortress on the prairie".  The Pawnee historical society might have old copies of the newspaper.  There are a number of articles about the Hotel in the old Greeley newspapers.  I have printed out a few of the best of them to send.  There is an aerial picture of the town of Grover from 1912 in the Town Hall.  You can see the Hotel in the picture (before it was painted).  It was originally two colors of brick.  

The following are links to pages with the history of the Grover Hotel. 

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