The Gage Hotel

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna tell it to you. Way out in Marathon, Texas, and if you've driven this far, you already know Marathon doesn't give itself up easy, there stands a brick hotel that's got a story worth the miles. The Gage Hotel, they call it, and the name belongs to one Alfred S.

Gage, a man who came all the way from Vermont to leave his mark on some of the toughest country in the state. Now Vermont and the Trans-Pecos don't have a whole lot in common, but Alfred Gage looked out at all that hardscrabble west Texas land and saw something. He built a ranching operation that grew to over six hundred sections.

Six hundred sections. Out here, where the land is beautiful and the water is scarce and every section earns its keep, that's not just a ranch; that's an empire. The largest ranching operation in the Trans-Pecos, the marker says, and I believe every word of it.

So what does a man of that scale do when he eventually moves to San Antonio and becomes a successful businessman and banker? He doesn't let go of Marathon. He holds on.

He has the El Paso firm of Trost and Trost design him a proper brick hotel, constructed between 1926 and 1927, right there in town. It served as his Marathon residence, his foothold, and as the headquarters for his local cattle and banking interests. The man left, but he left something standing.

That hotel is still there, still bearing his name, still anchoring Marathon to the story of the man who once ran cattle across more of the Trans-Pecos than most folks could ride across in a week. Vermont native, Texas legend. Some places just hold onto a person like that.

What the marker says

The Gage Hotel This brick hotel building, designed by the El Paso firm of Trost and Trost, was constructed in 1926-27 for Vermont native Alfred S. Gage. A cattleman, Gage founded the largest ranching operation in the Trans-Pecos, consisting of over 600 sections of land. After moving to San Antonio, where he became a successful businessman and banker, the hotel served as his Marathon residence and as the headquarters for his local cattle and banking interests. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1981