The Adnabrown Hotel was the second hotel building located on Main Street in Springfield. Around 1800, Col. Jonathan Williams built the first hotel, and called it the Black River Hotel. Sometime after the Civil War it was renamed the Springfield House – the same building, different name.
In 1888, local businessmen bought and moved the Jones & Lamson Company from Windsor, Vt., and a new building was constructed on lower Main Street to use the Black River for water power. They also hired James Hartness as the superintendent. But things were changing. The town was prospering, and electricity was becoming available. Adna Brown, a man with vision, felt the town needed a new, modern hotel, and formed the Springfield Hotel Committee.
The old wooden hotel was torn down, and a new brick hotel was completed in 1892. It was named The Adnabrown Hotel – Brown’s portrait hung over the lobby fireplace. The following descriptions are from the “History of the Town of Springfield” by Hubbard and Dartt, 1895: “One of the best appointed hotels in the state…rooms for 75 guests…has all the modern improvements, including electric lights, steam heat, electric bells…the sanitary arrangements are the best.”
Three years later, in 1897, the electric railway finally connected Springfield to the B&M railroad in Charlestown, N.H., and Brown saw to it that it came right up Main Street to The Adnabrown Hotel. By 1907, the automobile was becoming more commonplace and the hotel estimated that it had entertained 217 automobile parties that summer.
The hotel had its ups and downs. After filing for bankruptcy in 1935, a buyer was found, and it continued to be the only hotel in town until 1940, when machine tool businesses J&L, Bryants, and Fellows bought the Hartness Mansion and opened it as a hotel. This prompted the 48-year-old hotel to do some renovations. Papering and painting were done, along with refurbishing rooms, rearranging the dining rooms, and adding a dance facility. They now advertised 40 guest rooms.
On Jan. 3, 1955, a disaster was barely averted. An employee decided to burn the Christmas tree in the lobby fireplace, and it started a roaring chimney fire. It took firemen 20 long minutes to cool down the chimney, and thus save the building.
Six years later, they would not be so lucky. After serving the community 69 years, on Sunday, Jan. 1, 1961, at 10:35 a.m., a fire box on Main Street was pulled. There were 117 ski club guests, most of whom had left for the slopes. It is believed the fire started in trash barrels below a wooden stairway in the back of the building, and an airshaft propelled the fire to the front of the building. Seven communities responded to fire. No one was injured, but the hotel and 10 business were lost, totaling $500,000. Sadly, that day the hotel would become just a memory on Main Street.
Written by Rosanne “Bunni” Putnam, past-president of the Springfield Art & Historical Society