Thomas Saulpaugh got his new hotel started on June 15, 1888, when a score or more of men were put to work digging away at a foundation on the corner of South Front and Main Streets. Saulpaugh was a construction company owner who came to Mankato in 1888 in search of quarries to provide him with stone for the railroad bridges he was building. At the hotel site the usual crowd of “sidewalk engineers” supervised or just watched the work, according to the weekly Free Press reporter. Originally the project was assumed to cost $100,000, but eventually, it ran to about half again that figure. The city was bustling that summer with the hotel, the Young Men’s Insurance Building, the courthouse, the Baptist Church and St. Joseph’s Hospital, all being constructed at the same time.
When constructed, the Saulpaugh Hotel was the social hub of Mankato—magnificent four-story stone building, made of Mankato-Kasota stone. For years, it was the largest building in southern Minnesota. Guests of the hotel during its hey-days of the turn-of-the-century could purchase a box of cigars—“Saulpaugh Cigars,” produced by local cigar manufacturer, F.A. Bauer. Truly glorious party days in Mankato began with the formal opening ball of the hotel on November 6, 1889. All of Mankato’s society and many from surrounding communities attended the affair and so many were present that not all the people could be seated at one time for the seven-course dinner.
Prominent persons stayed at the hotel over the years:
Minnesota Governor William R. Merriam was at the formal opening of the hotel.
Author Sinclair Lewis, President William Howard Taft, and John Dillinger (rumored to have stayed here).
The Saulpaugh was featured in a Walt Disney cartoon in 1944. Donald Duck was hanging towels that he had taken from various hotels out on a line. One towel said “Saulpaugh Hotel.”
By Win Grundmeier
I loved that hotel…did a story on its destruction for the free press, and rescued the huge double 2 door head high safe which I hauled to my home in maple lake, in my dad’s ‘3/4 ton ford F250 67 pickup truck… Demo guys loaded it for me for a case of beer, as I recall….
I remember the elevator and the Blue Blazer. Had my 16th birthday party there..the elevator was open. I think they had an operator. Also the Hat shop. Facing main Street right next to side entrance to hotel
It is to bad that it was torn down. In Europe they blend the new with the old
I sure wish this beautiful building was still standing… So many memories of going there when I was young… it was always a very big deal to go to the Saulpaugh.
Thank you for sharing. F.A. Bauer was my grandfather I never knew. I have cigar molds and a box from his cigar business. Nice to read about this hotel and how it relates to his business.
Does anyone know what Palmers was? The place in the first story right hand side
My dad, Allyn Gleason, worked there as manager sometime in the late 40’s and we had an apartment there before we found a house. I recall we got one of the “curved shoulder” davenports from the hotel somehow when we moved to our home in Mankato by the college. Everything was the same name thru the years – the Blue Blazer and Abe’s Shoe Shine was there when I was a child of 5
I acquired a painting of the hotel about 20 years ago. Cornelius Votca, then pushing 90, looked at it and said “It was a crime that that was demolished.”