Historic Pardeeville / Belmont Hotel
Historic Pardeeville
In 1848, New York native and Milwaukee merchant, John S. Pardee hired agents to oversee his Fox River land holdings and to establish business operations from this location. Yates Ashley, the most notable of Pardee's agents, managed the on-site operations and surveyed and platted the town in 1850. Although railroad tracks were laid here 1857, real growth did not begin until after the 1870s. By 1899, Pardeeville boasted of two hotels, a flour mill, a grain elevator, a creamery, several potato warehouses, a lumber yard and a bank.
Belmont Hotel
Built in 1909, adjacent to Pardeeville's railroad depot, the Belmont Hotel served travelers from the six daily trains that passed through the village at the time. The three-story Belmont Hotel is constructed of concrete block and is the most prominent example of Pardeeville's concrete block commercial buildings. In 1973, Mrs. Myrtle Listner-Spear donated the 32 room building to the Columbia County Historical Society for use as a museum. The Belmont Hotel was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1993.
Marker is on North Main Street (State Highway 22) 0.1 miles north of Chestnut Street (County Highway P), on the right when traveling north.
Courtesy hmdb.org
