Wheeling’s Stratford Springs Hotel
Once upon a time in Woodsdale, just off Edgwood Street, stood a grand hotel.
Nearly a block long and composed entirely of wood, this playground of the elite offered 84 guest bedrooms, a spacious lobby, numerous elegant dining rooms, sweeping verandas, a billiard parlor, bowling alley, tennis courts, a writing room, three sun parlors and a grand ballroom where formal dances, concerts, and elaborate costume balls were held. The “Gem of Wheeling,” said the Wheeling News Register, “was beautifully located near the foot of Woodlawn hill and nestled in a perfect bower of trees and shrubbery that made it a beautifully cool and sequestered spot during the sultry days of mid-summer.”
This was no fairy tale, this was the Wheeling’s nationally famous Stratford Springs Hotel. But, like a comet streaking across the midnight sky, the Stratford’s existence was brilliant and brief. Read More