B4
THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, JULY 23, 2022
Hotel Elliott: Underwent renovations in the 2000s
Continued from Page B1
Floors originally fea-
tured shared bathrooms.
However, rooms were
equipped with large clos-
ets and shoe shine brushes.
Furniture throughout the
hotel was of dark wood,
upholstered with the finest
of leathers. A large phono-
graph entertained guests
in a lounge on the second
floor.
In 1928, Flora opened
the Hotel Elliott Coffee
Shop, where the hotel’s
wine bar is now located.
Curiously, over the span of
14 years, the Hotel Elliott
Coffee Shop changed own-
ership at least seven times.
One
owner,
Ernie
Anderson, died suddenly
at the age of 47. Another
owner, Benny Dixon,
forced the restaurant to
close its doors for several
months after his mysteri-
ous disappearance.
The coffee shop closed
permanently in 1942. That
same year, the property
was purchased by Short
as well as John and Mar-
garet. Jeremiah, who suf-
fered from heart disease,
had reportedly died at an
Exchange Street shop 13
years earlier.
To acquire the hotel,
the Elliott family entered
a sort of bidding war with
John Osburn and Mar-
shall Leathers, owners of
both Gearhart Hotel and
Hotel Astoria. Osburn and
Leathers, dissatisfied with
the outcome of the bid-
ding, raised concern over
the Elliott family not pay-
ing the hotel’s back taxes
on time – perhaps a last-
Photos by Jaime Lump
ABOVE: A marquee for the Hotel Elliott in downtown Astoria.
LEFT: A streetside view of Hotel Elliott in Astoria.
ditch effort for the pair to
acquire the property.
Nevertheless, the hotel
remained in the hands of
the Elliott family. A short
time after the sale, Mar-
garet suffered from mul-
tiple strokes, leaving her
bedridden for seven years
before her death in 1950.
For the next five
decades, the Elliott and
Short families called Hotel
Elliott home. Family mem-
bers slept in bedrooms on
the top floor, while living
and cooking in the base-
ment. Both John and Short
worked long days. The
1940 census shows Short
clocking in at 99 hours a
week.
Yet somehow, in his
spare time, Short was
president of the Kiwanis
and Astoria Chamber of
Commerce. For multiple
terms, he sat on the Asto-
ria School Board. Elliott,
who had served in the U.S.
Army during World War I,
was a member of the Vet-
erans of Foreign Wars and
the American Legion. In
between these activities,
he helped raise a daughter,
Margaret Nadine, in the
hotel with his wife, Ruby.
Hotel Elliott was also
home to several Colum-
bia River Bar Pilots. “The
river pilots used to stay
there because it was cen-
trally located downtown
where the restaurants were
and only two and a half
blocks to the pilots’ office.
The bar pilots had their
homes in Astoria, but the
river pilots usually lived
in Portland. They needed a
place here in town to spend
the night waiting for the
next ship to pilot to Port-
land,” Liisa Penner, archi-
vist at the Clatsop County
Historical Society, said.
In 1969, Short died
from a heart attack. More
than 1,000 condolence
calls and notes flooded
the hotel. His wife, Flora,
suffered multiple heart
attacks, one which, too,
took her life the follow-
ing year. John retired from
the hotel at the age of 81
in 1973.
Ownership of Hotel
Elliott has changed hands
since then. As part of a
larger vision of revital-
izing downtown Astoria,
the hotel underwent ren-
ovations in the 2000s.
The project reflected the
hotel’s original intent of
luxury, but it hasn’t lost its
roots.
Above a fireplace sits a
1920s photo of Jeremiah
and Margaret by the orig-
inal lobby desk. It’s still
used today, ready to check
visitors into the historic
Hotel Elliott.
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