CHARLESS, STATE'S FIRST HOTEL, WAS BUILT IN CAPE GIRARDEAU IN 1806

~Correction: Headline should read: OGLE, STATE'S FIRST HOTEL, WAS BUILT IN CAPE GIRARDEAU IN 1806

Cape Girardeau has many things to be proud of as the city begins the celebration of its bicentennial. One of them is having the first tavern-hotel in Missouri, which was built and in business in 1806.

Being one of the river towns that formed the nucleus of the state, it was a landing where families entered the West after the Louisiana Purchase was finalized. They came in numbers, taking advantage of cheap land being offered to settlers in an effort to improve their lifestyles.

A drawback to the invitation to accept cheap or even free land was a lack of shelter for travelers.

When the territory became part of the United States, Cape Girardeau was occupied by two or three dozen residents. Louis Lorimier, the founder of the city and commandant of the Cape Girardeau District, issued an invitation for new families to come to the Cape Girardeau area and receive land.

Lorimier's secretary, Barthelemi Cousin, laid out the town in 1806 and began to sell lots along the river and back a short distance from it for $100 each.

One of the first buyers was William Ogle, who, realizing the need for a place for people to meet and be entertained, and a place of shelter for travelers to sleep, erected a double cabin of logs in the early spring of February or March 1806. It was near the river, where Themis and Main streets now intersect.

It cost Ogle $20 in store goods and a bonus of six dinners for obtaining the logs to build the building. The building had an upper story where travelers could sleep. There were two large stone chimneys at either end of the building and a long covered porch across the entire front, where two entrance doors opened, one into the Ogle home, the other into the hotel.

Ogle's Hotel was popular from the time it opened until it closed three months later, when Ogle was killed in a duel by Joseph McFerron, the clerk of the court who had signed the license for Ogle to keep the hotel. The license had been granted by Christopher Hays, first justice of the court.

Ogle was hot-headed and took exception to McFerron's remark about a "too friendly preacher with some of the parishioners in the town, including his (Ogle's) wife."

After the Ogle Hotel closed, Charles G. Ellis opened a hotel in about 1810 on the northwest corner of what is now Broadway and Lorimier. Ellis was a friend of Ogle. After Mrs. Ogle died, soon after the death of her husband, Mr. and Mrs. Ellis raised the orphaned Ogle children.

The Ogle Hotel was in operation when Joseph Charless, an Irish refugee in St. Louis, started The Gazette, the first Irish newspaper west of the Mississippi, in July 1808. He and his wife also opened their home to travelers.

In St. Louis the Charless' home was large and bordered by Fourth, Fifth, Market, and Walnut streets. A large garden furnished fruits and vegetables for the bountiful table Mrs. Charless prepared daily for guests. Mrs. Charless, with seven other women and two men, started the first church of the Presbyterian faith in Missouri.

The Charless hotel, the Missouri House, long has been considered the state's first hotel. But the historians who wrote the accounts of those early years did not mention Cape Girardeau's earlier hotels.

Another early hotel in St. Louis was the Mansion House. William Bennett acquired the building in 1819, turning it into a hotel after making numerous changes. The building had been constructed in 1816 as the home and office for Surveyor-General William Rector. It was one of the showplaces in early St. Louis.

As a hotel it became famous because it was there that 41 delegates framed the first Missouri Constitution in 1817-1818. Bennett let them hold their meetings in the dining room and gave them two smaller rooms for offices, charging them $30 a week.

All of this time, the Missouri House was in operation and was the assembly place for social functions of St. Louisians. Christmas, New Year's parties, and especially St. Patrick Day festivities were notable celebrations at the hotel.

During those years more and more travelers kept arriving on the west bank of the Mississippi, and stopping or passing through the river towns.