Holland Hotel Building

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, if you want to know what held Alpine together during its boom years, what kept the cattlemen and the miners and the deal-makers all under one roof, you go stand in front of the Holland Hotel Building and you start to understand. This was a Spanish Colonial Revival hotel, built in 1912, and it was built for a man named John R.

Holland. Holland was a successful area cattleman; the kind of man a growing West Texas town builds a landmark around. And Alpine was growing, no question about it.

The mercury mining boom was in full swing, and the city needed a center of gravity. The Holland Hotel became exactly that: the civic center, the social center, the business center, all wrapped up in one building on one address in one ambitious little city out in Brewster County. Now John R.

Holland died in 1922, and that could've been the end of the story right there. A lot of things end when the man who built them is gone. But his son Clay took over the management of the business, and Clay didn't just keep the lights on; he made several additions to the structure.

The hotel kept changin' hands after that, different owners comin' and goin', but here's the thing that'll stay with you: through every one of those ownership changes, the Holland Hotel never closed. It stayed in operation, year after year, decade after decade, all the way until 1969. Fifty-seven years after that first stone went up during the mercury boom, the doors finally went quiet.

Some buildings outlast the men who build them. Some even outlast the booms that built the towns around them. The Holland Hotel did both.

What the marker says

This Spanish Colonial Revival hotel was built in 1912 for John R. Holland (d.1922), a successful area cattleman. Completed during the mercury mining boom days of Alpine, it served as the civic,social, and business center for the growing city. After Holland's death, the business was managed by his son Clay, who made several additions to the structure. Despite changes in ownership, the Holland Hotel remained in operation until 1969. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark -1980