Remember When

89 YEARS AGO • JULY 3, 1929

FRED SYMES PURCHASES THE FRANK RICHARDS HOLDING AT HOT SPRINGS, MONTANA

New $50,000 Hotel To Be Built – Also $10,000

Up-To-Date Bath House

According to information received here today, Fred Symes of Hot Springs has completed a real estate deal in that city whereby he becomes the owner of the Frank Richards holdings which consists of about 200 lots and the famous Lemeraux Springs.

According to our informant, immediate steps will be taken to build a new $50,000 modern resort hotel and $10,000 bath house and to develop the Springs in a real manner.

The step that is being taken by Mr. Symes is a long felt want and need of the flourishing city of Hot Springs. With the added health seekers mounting day by day for this popular resort this wonderful place, the need for an up-to-date hotel and baths have presented themselves to Mr. Symes, who is positive of the future of Hot Springs. His far seeing eye has seen what an institution of this kind will mean and he has taken advantage of the opening.

Mr. Symes is Hot Springs’ leading business man, now operating one of the best mercantile store in the county.

It is a well known fact that the famous springs at Hot Springs, Montana are unsurpassed in place in the world for their medical qualities. Now that a new and up-to-date hotel and bath house is to be built, the added accommodations will attract thousands of others that are seeking this kind of a place to come and spend a few weeks.

Hot Springs is coming to the front rapidly, through such wide-awake men as Mr. Symes. Now if the city will get together and get a good water system and a good lighting system, Hot Springs will be the leading town of the county.

According to the National Register of Historic Places: The Symes Hotel is located in the town of Hot Springs, Montana. Fred Symes purchased the three-acre parcel in 1929. At the time, a free flowing spring of hot mineral water, known as Lemeroux Springs, existed on the northwest side of the property. Upon purchase of the property, Symes announced plans to build a new resort hotel and bath house. Even after completion of the Mission Style hotel in the spring of 1930, Symes continued an ambitious building program that completed changed the appearance of the building while maintaining its mission style motif. He also added other guest facilities, including six tourist cabins and a multi-car garage. Other buildings on the property are the original boiler/laundry building, a coal shed, and a garage/workshop.

The building had a symmetrical façade with center and end cross-wings. The central wing was slightly higher than the end wings. Spanish mission-influenced curvilinear parapets hid the gable ends. Quatrefoil designed glazing set in round openings provided a focal point below the parapets. Besides the parapets and windows, references to the mission style were also made in the stuccoed walls, multi-paned window sash, and multi-colored hexagonal roof tiles. A double-bay porte-cochere with massive square columns and decorate brackets further added to the Spanish flavor by providing reference to an arcade.

Historic photographs of the Symes Hotel document steady expansion of the hotel into the first half of the 1940s. A two-story, rectangular wing is visible at the rear of the building’s central cross-wing. The addition had a multi-stepped parapet culminating in a low gable. The new wing housed hotel rooms on the second floor and individual apartments on the first floor for long-term guests. The eastern cross-wing also received an addition of an apartment with a full-length screened porch.

By 1940, a second story was added over the central and west wings. A solarium with multi-paned double-hung windows was built on top of the porte cochere. Striped canvas awnings appeared on many windows. A row of tourist cabins to the west of the hotel showed Symes was now catering to the motoring public. Another two story addition to the north of the central wing’s (c. 1931) addition almost doubled its size. The second floor contained hotel rooms and the ground floor five additional apartments.

The Symes Hotel reached its present appearance by 1945.

The interior of the Symes Hotel is modest and unornamented. A tiled fireplace is placed opposite the entry door in the lobby. The original men’s bath wing is located to the west of the lobby. It contained the individual beaded board private stalls, each with a six-foot long claw foot tub. A massage room, bathroom and steam bath room are at the end of the men’s bath wing. The east wing off the lobby contained similar facilities for women. The stalls and fixtures have been removed, and the room converted to a dining room.