A house ahead of its time

GREEN BAY – “In 1835, the town of Astor was platted, the proprietors being John Jacob Astor, Ramsay Crooks and Robert Stuart. A fine hotel, the Astor House, was built by John Jacob Astor, on the corner of Adams and Mason streets, and also a rambling structure, known in later years as ‘the bank building.’ Where the first regularly incorporated financial institution west of Detroit, the Bank of Wisconsin, opened its doors in 1835,” Ella Hoes Neville, et al, wrote in Historic Green Bay.

“At the time the shrewd old fur dealer, John Jacob Astor, desiring to increase the value of the land he owned in the new village of Astor, and to draw here some of the settlers who were coming in numbers to this part of the country, wisely determined to build a fine hotel, in which the transient guest should be made so comfortable he might be changed into a permanent resident,” Fannie C. Last said before the Green Bay Historical Society on Dec. 2, 1901.

“Chicago at that time had but some fifty inhabitants all told; and the little village of Astor, which was to be honored with this edifice, so far superior in size and in other respects to anything to be found in all the broad expanse of the Northwest, contained not more than some half dozen houses, built mostly of logs, small in size and destitute of paint.”

Astor hired James Duane Doty as his agent and promoter.

Since the adjacent village of Navarino had a hotel, “Doty wanted one so far superior to the primitive Washington House that it would be a frontier sensation,” Green Bay Historian Jack Rudolph wrote in 1958.

“About the time the Astor House was erected the Astor warehouse and dock were built near it — a convenient landing place for boats coming up the lakes or down the river. Much interest must have centered just here during the busy months of preparation and construction, and small as was the population in the two villages one can imagine quite a wild excitement when the work was actually completed, and in all the imposing majesty of its three stories and crowning cupola, the Astor House glistening fresh white paint, stood in the morning sunshine, a beautiful object to the partial eyes of the beholders. Perhaps a stranger would hardly have considered it an architectural gem; it was very large, very square, quite guiltless of any adornment or frivolous devices whatever. Its many windows were provided with bright green blinds to temper sun and wind to the lambs gathered within its walls,” Last said.

“The spacious, comfortable rooms became a favorite meeting place for the citizens. Here the gentlemen of the twin villages were wont to assemble in the evening for the interchange of ideas, the discussion of the news of the day, and here the village storyteller enlivened the evening with copious recollections of his past life, and predictions, cheerful or otherwise, according to his mood, of the future.”

The hotel opened in August of 1837, coinciding with the country’s Panic of 1837 — a major recession in the U.S. economy — which rippled through the nation until the mid-1840s.

“Gradually, time caught up with the hotel and it began to justify Doty’s vision. The rising lumber industry and the tide of immigration during the late 1840s and 1850s turned it into a highly profitable venture,” Rudolph stated.

“He completely redecorated it, added rooms, enlarged the stables and imported a ‘Troy coach’ that became Green Bay’s first public transportation and which he used to transport guests to and from the ship landings,” added Rudolph.
Again, the hotel was operating way ahead of its time, but good fortune would not last.

“The old house lost none of its popularity while Mr. Stone presided over it, and it was very prosperous and successful financially. Shortly before its destruction, it was decided to enlarge the hotel, giving fourteen new rooms in addition to the number it already contained. It became quite a popular abiding place for families who preferred boarding to the cares and worries of housekeeping. Lieutenant Smith, later Admiral Smith, who after doing gallant service during the Civil War, spent his last years in Green Bay, boarded here for some time with his wife, the gayest and most social of women, who made life in the little city one perpetual festival while she sojourned in our midst. Col. Robinson brought his bride here, a very welcome addition not only to the Astor House, but to Green Bay society as well. Perhaps the old house was too prosperous for its own good; certainly, it made for itself an enemy. Several unsuccessful attempts to burn it were followed by one better or worse planned, for this time the flames had made great headway before being discovered, and the house was burnt to the ground one night in August 1857,” Last said.

“So rapidly did the old house burn that the inmates barely escaped with their lives, leaving their possessions behind them. Mrs. Smith, genius of gayety and fun, came down the stairs while they were in flames, and a few moments after her descent they fell in ruins.”

The Green Bay Common Council offered a $3,000 reward for information on the arsonist who set fire to the structure.

“The reward is a liberal one, as it should be, and we hope, for the good of the community, that it will prove to be sufficient for the purpose. Even should it fail, as we have no doubt it will, it will be some satisfaction to know that the city authorities have done all they could in the matter,” the Aug. 27, 1857 Green Bay Advocate stated.

Historical publications do not provide any indication that the perpetrator was identified, but fingers were being pointed.

“After the fire, a good share of the members of the fire department, taking some of the fire apparatus along, went across East River and tore down a house of unsavory repute,” the Green Bay Weekly Gazette stated in September 1893.

“This was done partly on general principles and party from a lurking suspicion that there was some connection between the Astor House fire and the inmates or frequenters of the house they destroyed.”