This building is a reconstruction of a structure built in 1873 for prominent Galveston merchant John Parker Davie and named the Cosmopolitan Hotel. Davie sold the business in 1878 to John Summers, who renamed it the Washington Hotel after an earlier inn by that name which was destroyed in the Galveston fire of 1877. The J. P. Davie Wholesale Builders' Hardware store occupied the first and fourth floors of the east end of the building. The ground floor of the west end provided space for the hotel restaurant and retail shops. Hotel guest rooms filled the remaining floors of the structure. Located among a number of fashionable inns and shops in the Strand district, the Washington Hotel remained in business for one hundred years. After a number of changes in ownership, renovation of the building began in the early 1980s. A devastating fire on August 25, 1983, however, destroyed much of the historic structure. With only the east wall left intact, the building was rebuilt based on early photographic documentation and surviving architectural elements.
Washington Hotel
The roadside stories worth pulling over for.
Washington Hotel is a historical marker in Galveston, Galveston County, dedicated in 1991. It is one of 283 historical markers documented in Galveston County in the Texas Historical Commission Atlas, among 373 historic sites cataloged across the county.
The site sits at 29.3064, -94.7940 near Galveston. The nearest cataloged historic site is Ballinger, W. P., Law Firm (historical marker), about under a tenth of a mile away. Others within a short drive include Leon & H. Blum Co. Building, Thomas Jefferson League Building, and Magale Building.
This record corresponds to Texas Historical Commission Atlas #5167011589. Use the map below for its exact position and turn-by-turn directions.
Get Texas Roam — all 28,000 sites in your pocket
See this site and every marker, cemetery, courthouse, museum and landmark across Texas on one live map — find what's near you, get directions, and check in as you roam.
