On Friday March 26th, 1993, the last hotel in Sterling, the Lincoln Tavern, fell to the wrecking ball. Once considered a beautiful hotel with modern conveniences and a continental dining room, it had fallen into disrepair in recent years. Converted to an apartment building in the 1960's it began to slowly spiral downward, becoming less attractive physically and attracting those individuals who usually survive on the fringe of society. The Sterling Today Inc. included the Lincoln Tavern in its redevelopment plans to be demolished. Did this group make a mistake in destroying this landmark? Could its wonderful past have been resurrected, perhaps not as a hotel but as a lovely residence for the elderly?
In a personal interview with Andy Cullum, President of Sterling Today Inc., he was asked how this committee organized. He told me, "It all began in the winter of 1986." Several businessmen were concerned about the deterioration of the downtown area. According to Dale Parker, the current members of the Sterling Today Inc. are: President Andy Cullum, owner of First Resource Inc., a financial consulting agency; Vice-President Dave Lowe, vice-president of Wilkens and Lowe, an insurance firm; Treasurer Dave Kingland, vice-president of First National Bank in Sterling; Secretary Dave Murray, attorney at Ward, Murray, Pace and Johnson; board member Jim Glafka, owner of Glafka's Tire City Inc.; board member Pat Benson, wife of retired National Manufacturing President Bill Benson; board member Don Vogel, partner and manager of Clifton, Gunderson and Co., an accounting firm; board member John Dillon, owner of Bazaar Americana, a shopping plaza; board member Reid Nolte, executive director of the Sterling Industrial Development Commission. Pete Dillon president of 4-D Farms Inc. and former president and chairman of Northwestern Steel and Wire Company, and Dick Prescott, owner of Prescott Construction Company, are non-voting members of the board, but attend most meetings. Bob Stewart, executive director of the Sterling Chamber of commerce is a former board member who has attended some meetings (5). According to Mr. Cullum the central question the businessmen were concerned with was, "Why have we lost the retail base?" To answer this question, they ran a shoppers survey. The committee received 800-900 responses. From these, they surmised there was a gap in retailing. Mr. Cullum stated that they hired a marketing firm to investigate all possible options to increase the downtown retail base .
In the "Sterling Redevelopment" proposal, Sterling Today, Inc. is described as a not-for-profit organization concerned with redeveloping Sterling's downtown area. Members of the organization have no financial interest in the redevelopment area, and only one of the members, Jim Glafka, is a retail owner. In the summer of 1988, the organization began assisting the city by providing funds for a marketing and land use study, a traffic study, and a developer (Sterling Redevelopment).
According to Andy Cullum, these studies identified what area in the downtown was in the greatest need of repair and found that a grocery store would draw the most consistent numbers of people. The targeted zone included buildings that were deemed unsafe and had been unoccupied for years, as well as buildings that contained retail stores and offices. The targeted area encompassed eight city blocks. The boundaries ran from West Fifth Street on the north to Locust Street on the east to West Third Street on the south to Avenue C on the east. This area contained seven unoccupied buildings, nine businesses and the Lincoln Tavern. Of the nine businesses, five relocated with two of them remaining downtown. According to Mr. Cullum, the four businesses that chose to close did so because they were considered hobbies by their owners. All building owners were compensated for their land and property. They were also told they could file to have their building investigated for the possibility of having historical value. The owners of the Lincoln Tavern did not file an objection to the city purchasing their property nor did they chose to find out if it had historical significance. According to Mr. Cullum, Sterling Today Inc. saw no historical value in preserving the Lincoln Tavern. The committee felt the hotel was beyond repair and had a problem with vagrants.
The idea for the Lincoln Tavern was born on the afternoon of June 1, 1921. According to Corina Curry, "The Sterling Association of Commerce and Manufacturer's and Shipper's Association hotel committee met in the afternoon to discuss where they could get the money for a much-needed new hotel (1). The hotel, yet unnamed, was thought to be needed to accommodate the many traveling salesmen who frequented the area due to the large number of factories. In today’s terms a tavern is usually thought of as a beer and a shot bar. However, when the Lincoln Tavern was built, a tavern was a place where food and shelter could be found. Curry goes on to state that the committee decided on selling bonds and asking for pledges from community members to pay for the construction of the hotel. The largest pledges of $10,000 per pledge came from National Manufacturing Company, E. F. and J. H. Lawrence. Other pledges ranged from $100 to $2500 per pledge. By late in the summer of 1921, the hotel fund raised $67,500. This money was raised by wealthy citizens and local businesses (1). Winifred Moore noted that as of July 22, 1922, the committee still lacked $75,000 in funds to build the new hotel (Winifred Moore Notes). According to Curry, M. E. Rice of Dixon supplied the remaining needed funds (1). In a telephone interview with Mr. E. E. Gordon, Mr. Gordon stated that Mr. Rice, who built and was the first owner of the Lincoln Tavern, owned several other hotels in the area, two of these being the Nachusa House in Dixon and the Rice Hotel in Dekalb. On March 1, 1923, the Lincoln Tavern opened to the public. It was three stories high, contained a lobby, writing room, ladies waiting room, parlor, main dining room and 68 guest rooms. Conveniently located on the corner of Avenue A and West Fourth Street, the hotel was three blocks northwest of the train station.
In a telephone interview with Mr. E. E. Gordon, Mr. Gordon stated he came to the Lincoln Tavern at the request of Mr. Rice, the hotel’s owner. Mr. Rice offered to lease Mr. Gordon the hotel's dining room if he would provide meals to Mr. Rice's family at no charge. The bargain was struck and Mr. Gordon began running the dining room in 1942.
Mr. Gordon recalls a veranda running the length of the building on Avenue A where the lobby door was also located. Here on warm summer nights you would find the hotel guests sitting and chatting. According to Mr. Gordon, the Rice family occupied the first floor of the hotel, and the second and third floors were for hotel patrons. He remembers that most of the patrons were salesmen from the many factories and businesses in the area.
Mr. Gordon stated of the three hotels located in Sterling at the time, the other two being the Gal House and the Colonial House, the Lincoln Tavern was the only one to offer a dining room for its guests. The dining room served three meals a day Monday through Friday and was closed all day Saturday and open for lunch only on Sundays. Mr. Gordon felt there was no need to open the dining room on Saturdays as most of the hotel guests returned home on the weekends. During this time, Sunday was the preferred day for dining out by the public. Mr. Gordon ran the hotel dining room until 1955, leaving to open his own restaurant.
In a personal interview with John Kelly, who at one time worked for Jack Speroni, he states Jack Speroni bought the Lincoln Tavern in 1958. According to Mr. Kelly, Mr. Speroni converted the hotel rooms into modern efficiency and one bedroom apartments which Sterling lacked. Mr. Speroni then obtained a liquor license for the restaurant. He opened the Elbow Room, a small lounge adjacent to the dining room, that seated ten to twelve people at the bar and had several small tables for cocktails. This intimate setting proved a popular choice for downtown businessmen as well as the residents of the apartments. Mr. Kelly noted that many single retired residents would meet for cocktails and to socialize in the lounge before dining together in the restaurant.
In a telephone interview with Ms. Jennifer Nelson, she said her father Bob Moorehead bought the Lincoln Tavern on contract in 1979 from Jack Speroni shortly before his death. According to Ms. Nelson, when Mr. Moorehead bought the hotel, the Speroni's occupied five apartments on the first floor, and the Mooreheads converted three apartments on the third floor into private living quarters. That left eighteen efficiency apartments and thirty one-bedroom apartments; of these, six efficiency and six-one bedroom apartments were combined to make six two-bedroom apartments. After remodeling, the final apartment count was twelve efficiency, twenty four one-bedroom, and six two-bedroom apartments. The efficiency apartments rented for $125 and the one-bedroom for $165 a month. The rent included water. There was a coin-operated laundry room on the second floor available for the tenants.
Ms. Nelson stated that the tenants included single, married, one-child families, and the retired. She believes the tenants ranged from "middle class" to "lower middle class." Ms. Nelson doesn't believe her father ever had to evict a tenant. She remembers on the occasion when a tenant was unable to pay the rent, the tenant was offered the choice to do, maintenance work around the hotel. One resident proved so good at the maintenance work that he did not pay rent except for the first year Ms. Nelson's father owned the hotel.
When asked if there ever was a problem with transients sleeping in the halls, Ms. Nelson replied that in the beginning there was a problem but it was quickly and easily rectified. Her father, Mr. Moorehead, installed security locks on all the outside doors. These doors were locked after a security sweep of the building at ten p.m. All of the tenants were given pass keys so they could come and go at will. This measure cured the problem of transients sleeping on the floors and in the lobby of the hotel.
Ms. Nelson recalled two security problems her father had to deal with while at the hotel. Shortly after Mr. Moorehead bought the hotel in 1979, a bomb threat was called into the Sterling Police Department at 2 a.m. The hotel was evacuated. When no bomb was found, the threat was determined to be a hoax. In the other incident, a grease fire ensued, causing major smoke and water damage. A young couple left bacon frying unattended. Luckily the damage was contained to their apartment.
According to Ms. Nelson, after her father bought the hotel, he decided to convert the fourth floor into a penthouse apartment. Windows were installed along the north wall that faces the alley. This floor was not visible from the street affording much privacy. Unfortunately the penthouse was never completed. In 1983 Mr. Moorehead ended his contract and the hotel reverted back to Mrs. Jack Speroni. She managed the hotel until her death.
In a telephone interview with Mrs. Noel Feather, the last owner of the Lincoln Tavern, she states she bought the building from the Speroni estate in 1990. She had planned to upgrade the apartments hoping to attract self-sufficient elderly who would benefit from the downtown setting. She felt the Lincoln Hotel would be an ideal site as it contained an elevator and a restaurant, both amenities that the elderly and the physically challenged would find beneficial. A few months after the purchase, she was informed by the city that the Lincoln Hotel sat in the zone targeted for demolition. She was very upset and was against selling the property but felt she had no choice.
When Mrs. Feather purchased the Lincoln Hotel, it had 29 efficiency, one, and two bedroom apartments. Although not divulging what the rent was for the apartments, she did say they would be considered "low-income." Her tenants were made up of single, married, retired and the physically challenged. Though she considered some of her tenants to be undesirable, Mrs. Feather felt she had no choice but to rent to them as she needed to meet the debt service on the property. She feels the city placed her in this position when they decided to demolish the building. This decision forced her to include a sixty-day notice clause in her leases. This clause was included in the lease to inform tenants of the possibility of having to vacate the property within sixty days. According to Mrs. Feather, possible long term stable tenants were unwilling to subject themselves to such terms. Mrs. Feather also readily admits she was unwilling to invest any money into upgrading the property when the city was just going to tear the building down. During the time Mrs. Feather owned the property, she had no security problems in the building and never had a problem with transients sleeping or wandering the halls.
Mrs. Feather informed her tenants that they would have to relocate after receiving her vacate order from the city. She states that when the sixty-day notices were served, the Whiteside County Housing Authority was available to help anyone having trouble finding housing. Mrs. Feather stated that the only groups that were seriously affected were the elderly and the physically challenged. These people depended on the hotel’s elevator and laundry room to enable them to be self-sufficient.
In conclusion, the Lincoln Tavern was torn down because it was located in a business district identified for redevelopment. Where the Lincoln Tavern once stood, a parking lot will be located to accommodate parking for the new grocery store. The Sterling Today Inc. made a mistake in tearing down Sterling’s last hotel. With a proposed grocery store, drug store and existing library, more services would have been available to the elderly residents of the hotel. With Mrs. Feather’s interest in upgrading the hotel, the Sterling Today Inc. would have better served the community by helping her reach her goals. The committee’s fears of vagrants wandering the hotel's halls were unfounded. None of the hotel's owners ever had a problem with residents or vagrants. Sterling’s downtown beautification program has made several seating areas scattered throughout the downtown area. If housing was available downtown, the seating areas might have been used by the elderly. Now they sit empty.
Works Cited
Cullum, A. R. Personal Interview. 26 Mar. 1993.
Curry, Corina. " Local Leaders Made Hotel a Reality."
Sauk Valley Sunday [Sterling] 7 Mar. 1993:
Feather, Mrs. Noel. Personal Interview. 25 Mar. 1993.
Gordon, E. E. Personal Interview. 25 Mar. 1993.
Inks, Bill. "Last Days for a Landmark."
Sauk Valley Sunday [Sterling] 7 Mar. 1993: 1.
Kelly, John. Personal Interview. 18 Mar. 1993.
Moore, Winifred. Unpublished, undated notes. Sterling Public Library.
Nelson, Jennifer. Personal Interview. 18 Mar. 1993.
Parker, Dale R. "Downtown Sterling Reborn." Sauk Valley Sunday [Sterling] 21 Mar. 1993: 1+.
Sterling Today Inc. "Sterling Redevelopment." Unpublished undated proposal.
Sterling Today Inc. "City of Sterling Tax Increment Financing Downtown Redevelopment
Question And Answer Brochure." Unpublished undated proposal.
I have to agree wholeheartedly with Anne Steiner, wherever she might be today in 2005. I moved to the Rock Falls/ Sterling area in 1993, just in time to witness the destruction of the once thriving city of Sterling. Not only was this old tavern torn down, but many other landmarks of the city, including the Fourth Street Methodist Church, felt the wrecking ball. I did not grow up in this wonderful place but its always "felt" like home to me. My heart broke many times during this year of "progress." I wonder if Sterling will ever again feel the "pride" that was once its birthright. I wonder if the money pocketed from this destruction has ever been worth the pain and loss of such history. Yes - some of these buildings were in disrepair and needed some help - and hindsight is "perfect vision", but I have to wonder if they had it to do over again ... (Christine Walters)
