With the Marriott Hotel and Conference Center in uptown Normal slated to open soon, it's an opportune time to recall that downtown Bloomington was once home to a thriving hotel trade.

Before the age of interstate highways, locally-owned downtown hotels were a fixture in cities small and large. Danville had the Wolford, Champaign the Beardsley, Decatur the Orlando, Galesburg the Custer, Rockford the Faust and Springfield the Leland, to name but a few. In Bloomington there were three leading downtown hotels: the Illinois, the Rogers and the Tilden-Hall.

From the depths of the Great Depression to JFK and Camelot, the Tilden-Hall, a six-story hotel on the northeast corner of Madison and Washington streets, was a popular destination for out-of-towners and locals alike.

The hotel, which opened around 1900, went through a series of owners and name changes during its first three decades. It was first called the Arnold and then the Hills, and by the early 1920s it was known as the Arlington, becoming by that time "a rather down-at-the-heel place," according to the local press.

In 1932-33, lumbermen and building contractors William Tilden and Charles Hall took on the task of modernizing the building, and under their direction the local architectural firm Schaeffer and Hooten transformed the lobby and other areas into a style best described as Hollywood Moderne. This "new" hotel now offered 150 guest rooms, 40 with a private bath.

The Pullman Coffee shop became a choice spot for downtown office workers while the Pink Elephant tap room ("Where the spirit of fellowship reigns supreme") pulled in those spending a night on the town. The second floor featured a banquet hall known as the Green Room, and the basement held a "swank" place for luncheons, bridge parties and meetings for local organizations.

In early September 1933, some 225 partygoers attended a dinner dance of "beauty and sophistication" to celebrate the opening of the Tilden-Hall.

Owner Charles Hall soon brought in William F. "Happy" Hunt to manage the hotel. Hunt came from the Beardsley in Champaign, which was a stop for college teams in the days when the Big Ten was known as the Western Conference. "Happy furnished a warmth at every hotel he served, and that is one of the reasons the traveling men liked to stop with him," recalled Pantagraph sports editor Fred Young.

Sadly, by mid-century the days of the downtown hotel were coming to a close. In the early 1950s, Streid's Motel, one of the pioneers on the U.S. Route 66 Beltline (now Veterans Parkway), offered 32 rooms, bypassing the central business district. The area's first Holiday Inn, located at Illinois 9 and the Beltline, opened a decade later.

In November 1961, Peoples Bank (now Commerce) announced the purchase of the Tilden-Hall, and not long afterward the hotel was razed to make way for a 23-space surface parking lot. The Illinois, the last of the venerable downtown hotels, closed in the 1970s, though unlike the Rogers and Tilden-Hall, it remains standing.

Back in 1961, news of the Tilden-Hall's impending demise hit Pantagraph staffers hard, since many were accustomed to walking across Madison Street for lunch or an evening cocktail. Newsman Harold Liston said he ate lunch at the "T-H" nearly every day of his 18 years at the paper. In fact, there still might be a few old timers around who remember the navy bean soup on Mondays and chef Joe Bono's spaghetti sauce.

On Dec. 30, 1961, Tilden-Hall stalwarts gathered for an evening of bittersweet revelry. Pink Elephant bartender Eddie Grider poured drinks while area residents like G.H. "Hub" Parker, Leo Hamilton, Ruth Hiett, Clyde Hunter and others said goodbye to the old pile of bricks.

For three days in early January 1962, H.S. Beeney of Peoria auctioned off the hotel's furnishings, equipment and assorted odds and ends. A first-day crowd of 200 bargain hunters bid on wool blankets, corduroy drapes, bedspreads, electric fans, shower curtains and even a baby grand piano. Two months later a wrecking ball had reduced the hotel to a pile of rubble.

In the end, the lovely Tilden-Hall proved no match for the insatiable demand for downtown parking.