DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Old Mobley Hotel, right here in Eastland County. Now settle in, because this one starts with a dream and ends somewhere bigger than the man who dreamed it. The year is 1916, and somebody builds a hotel in Cisco, Texas.
Nothing wrong with that — Cisco needed a hotel. But then came the oil boom. Cisco's great oil boom.
And in 1919, the owner sold out. Sold to a thirty-two-year-old ex-legislator and banker who'd come down from New Mexico with his eyes wide open. His name was Conrad Hilton.
Now, on the very night he made that purchase — the very night — Hilton dreamed of Texas wearing a chain of Hilton hotels. A chain. Wrapped around the whole state.
That's a big dream for a man standing in a modest hotel in Cisco, Texas, but Conrad Hilton was apparently not a modest dreamer. He held onto that first hotel, the Old Mobley, until 1925, when he sold it. The hotel kept right on operating for many years after that — long after Hilton had moved on to bigger things.
And here's the part the marker wants you to sit with: in time, reality outran the dream. The man they would eventually call the World's Foremost Innkeeper started right here, in Cisco, in a hotel somebody else built in 1916. That dream he dreamed the first night?
Texas ended up wearin' a lot more than he imagined.
What the marker says
First hotel owned by Conrad Hilton, who proceeded to become "The World's Foremost Innkeeper". Built in 1916, who sold out (1919) during Cisco's great oil boom to Hilton, then a 32-year-old ex-legislator and banker from New Mexico. On night of purchase Hilton "dreamed of Texas wearing a chain of Hilton hotels". In time reality outran that dream. Hotel was in use many years after sale by Hilton in 1925. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1970