A "new" Saratoga may cost a little more than "$40,000 on construction and furnishings"

It looks like the Friends of the Saratoga over on Facebook are looking for more details on the hotel. References to the Saratoga are sprinkled throughout Big Trouble, with the more telling and interesting excerpt below coming courtesy of Google Books. The photograph also comes from Big Trouble and you have seen it on this blog and elsewhere. Maybe I will call it my official "Friends of the Caldwell Bank and Saratoga" picture. After all, both the bank and hotel are forever entwined in our family history and I can never think of one without thinking of the other. 

From Big Trouble: The Caldwell Band, led by the famed 'musicologist' Professor A. T. Gordon, posed here in late 1905, a few months before Steunenberg's assassination. They stand at the town's most prestigious intersection, Seventh and Main, looking toward the Oregon Short Line depot. On the left is Frank Steunenberg's Caldwell Banking and Trust Company; on the right, the Saratoga Hotel."

BTW, the bank building is currently listed for $250K. Double or triple that to include upgrades, restoration and bringing it up to code. I do keep hoping, wishing and dreaming! I am a friend of both the Caldwell Bank and the Saratoga.

The excerpt is from a favorite passage about Governor Steunenberg that gives the reader a feel for the Saratoga Hotel as a focal point and social center of the town in 1905. Fortunately, it is available on the preview pages so I don't have to type this one. Go down to the third paragraph on page 42 where it begins "As the governor crossed Seventh Avenue..." and read the subsequent four or so paragraphs. If you are receiving this as an email notification, you may not see the pages below and will want to click on and come to the blog for viewing. May take a few moments to load.