Grayson County TXGenWeb

The Nelson House

The Nelson House was in operation by March 1873, approximately seven months after the first town lots were sold in Denison; the other hotel for public use at this time was the Alamo Hotel, the M.K.T.'s hotel built near the depot.

On March 1, 1873 the Nelson House awas named the "oldest hotel in this city" in that issue of The Denison Daily. Board was:
Transient, $2.50 per day
Board & Lodging by the week, $8 and $10
Day board, $6.00 per week
The table was to be supplied at all times.
Leonard & Rush, Proprietors

The July 25, 1873 issue of The Denison Daily News printed the following as a sure way to drive bed bugs from bed:
"Take green tomato vines; put them in a basin or tray, pound to pieces as fine as possible, then stain the bedstead which the bugs inhabit with the juice, fill the crevices with pieces of vines and lay leaves under the ends of the slats. If this is practiced twice a year not a bug will remain in the bedstead."

A comical situation that occured at The Nelson House was printed in the paper in the late summer 1873.
The Cook at the Nelson House, stepping out at the back door early one morning this week, discovered a large sized pigtail sticking up out of the barrel of slp in the back yard. Closer inspection revealed a two hundred pound hog standing on his head in the barrel of liquid. The porker had clambered to the top of the barrel during the night to get a taste of the savory contents and pitched in. He was too far gone when discovered and now rests quietly outside the limits of the city. (The Denison Daily News, August 27, 1873)

The Denison Daily News
Tuesday, August 12, 1873

In August 1873 Patrick Maxwell purchased the shoe shop on Rusk Street, opposit The Nelson House.
Mr. J.H. Stephenson of Waco opened a photograph gallery next door to The Nelson House.
Gray, Bowman & Co. operated a Metallic Cement Roofing Co. on Woodard Street, north of The Nelson House.

An advertisement in September 1873 stated that James Leonard was the proprietor of The Nelson house at the corner of Main and Rusk. The proprietorship of The Nelson House changed hands frequently in the following years, with James Leonard re-purchasing the hotel several times. The oldest hotel in Denison was in business until the mid-1880s.