Coleman's Hotel
Old hotel soon to be a memory
By Michael Sanglacomo
CEDAR LAKE -- There's little left to the Coleman Hotel for Mary Coleman to recognize.She said when she stopped in to a sale of the furnishings Sunday and saw $5 price tags on lamps she bought new decades ago, it broke her heart.
"I'm very sad it has to end like this," she said, "But the building is too old, too far gone."
Coleman, 74, sold the hotel to Al and Shirley Bunge and their son, Al Jr. The senior Bunge said he hopes to demolish the building within a month. Then Al Bunge Jr. will build a new building for the family-owned True Value Hardware Store, now located four blocks away.
"I've been in the hardware business since 1946," the elder Bunge said. "My son runs the business. Now we are turning it over to him."
Last Sunday about 70 people stopped in at the hotel to get one final look.
"Some came to get a bargain on some furniture." Bunge said. "Some came to look, some came to buy a small momento to remember the place by."
The Coleman Hotel, formerly known as the Russell Hotel, housed more than just a bar, restaurant and rooms. It was a storehouse of memories.
"At the turn of the century a man named James Ray built the place," Coleman said. Coleman said Ray sold it to a man named Robert Russell. Eventually, the hotel's reputation suffered, Coleman said.
Coleman said authorities cracked down on the hotel and closed it around 1920. It remained closed through the Prohibition era and was bought by Coleman's father-in-law, Karl, in 1933.
"That's when it was a great hotel," she said. "My mother-in-law, Della, used to kill, clean and cook her own chickens. We had the best food in Lake County."
Coleman said she took a job as a waitress there in 1935, and married Roscoe Coleman in 1943.
It took many years for the hotel to live down its reputation.
The Coleman family operated the hotel-restaurant for years. Karl Coleman died in 1938, Della died in 1950, Roscoe died on June 18, 1984.
"We were married for 41 years," she said. "He was working on a toilet at the hotel and he fell down the basement stairs. I was the one who found him. It's almost five years and I haven't been able to cry yet."
Coleman said she tried to keep the bar and restaurant portion open, but ultimately had to give it up.
"It was too hard for me," she said. "I was losing weight, losing sleep. I had to let it go."
Mary Coleman thought long and hard before selling the hotel. She said that in 1986 she sat there next to the ornate, carved turn-of-the-century cherry bar and felt the presence of spirits.
"I looked around and wondered if I should invest all the money and the rest of my life to keeping the bar open," she said. "I could feel the ghosts in there. I asked out loud for one of them to show himself and give me a sign about what to do. Thank God none of them did or I would have had a heart attack and died on the spot."
Coleman sold it to a Lowell man and his wife. She held the mortgage and he was to make monthly payments to her. She said he did not make most of the payments, pay the taxes or the sewer bill. Last March she hired a lawyer and took the property back. It was not the same.
"It was terrible," she said. "They ruined it. It was filthy. They moved the bar, tore down a stairway, put holes in the wall. I used to cry when I went past.
"Once again I thought about reopening it, but it's just too late," she continued. "The building is too far gone and I'm too old to start up again."
She said she likes the Bunges, and although she is sad that the hotel will be torn down she understands it is necessary.
"I think about the place all the time," she said. "I drive past and I look at it and feel badly. Even though I know it will soon be gone, I'm content. I have my pictures and I have my memories; no one can ever take those away."
Another article, from the Feb. 22, 1989, Register newspapers was also found in a scrapbook owned by Town Historian Richard Schmal:
Future of landmark uncertain
By TRINDA COPELANDCorrespondent
CEDAR LAKE -- What has affectionately been known as Coleman's Corner in Cedar Lake might soon be missing one vital detail -- the Coleman Hotel that has been there for nearly 100 years.
The hotel, which was recently purchased by the Bunge family of Cedar Lake, will soon be torn down or moved to make way for a hardware store and lawn and garden center at the location.
According to Al Bunge, owner of Lakeshore Hardware, the current hardware store outgrew its location, and the family has been looking for a location to expand.
There is a possibility that a party may purchase the hotel building from the Bunge's and move it to another location to be used for an apartment building.
"I'm 75 percent sure that won't happen though," says Bunge. He says the idea is not feasible because of the cost involved in such a move and the disrepair of the building.
"You hate to have something with historical significance just demolished," says Bunge. He said that the Cedar Lake Historical Society was the first to be contacted after the purchase of the building.
"They weren't mad or disgruntled at all," says Bunge about the society's reaction to the plan to tear down the building. The historical society has asked for some of the furnishing inside the building and will take pictures of the historical hotel. According to town historian Bea Horner Castrogiovanni, the hotel was built around the turn of the century.
"It was first a halfway house," explains Castrogiovanni. She said the travelers would stop at the hotel to rest their horses, to eat and to sleep. "In those days a halfway house supplied everything."
The first owner of the Coleman Hotel was Jim Ray, better known as "Diamond Jim." At that time, the building was known as Ray's Road House. The building was then sold to the Russell family who eventually sold the hotel to the Coleman family in the early 1930's.
In its hay day, the hotel served as a training spot for several prize fighters as well as the town saloon.
"If I want to be nostalgic I would say wouldn't it be nice if we could keep them all," says Castrogiovanni about the plans to tear down the hotel.
"I understand that you can't stop progress," adds Castrogiovanni, who says it would not be feasible to keep all the historical buildings.
"We have one trinket of the past and that stands for everything," says Castrogiovanni referring to the renovation of the Lassen Hotel which is now known as the Lake of the Red Cedars Museum.
According to the historian, the museum will serve as a reminder of all the historical building that can't be kept in Cedar Lake, including the Coleman Hotel.
Go to Businesses--Hotels/Inns--Coleman's Hotel, "Pioneer History Index," for further information.
Return to Lowell Biographies.