These Walls: Hotel Maire in Bartlesville, Oklahoma

In Oklahoma's territorial formation, virtually every community had one hotel spring up around the railroad depot to become the centerpiece of commerce and culture. That's where people went to impress and pamper clients and guests, to propose marriage or consummate the wedding, to toast the new year or simply dance the night away.

Through two renovations, museum Collections Manager Debbie Neece said the Maire added a second leg and then filled in the gap to become a cube, but the focus remained on quality. Founding partner C.E. Burlingame saw to that, taking full control of the hotel in 1937 and maintaining it another 24 years under his banner, the Burlingame Hotel. John Wayne and Ben Johnson numbered among his guests.That's the role the building retains, although now as the Bartlesville City Hall. A 1998 bond issue allowed that move two years later, the 10,000-square-foot top floor devoted to the Bartlesville Area History Museum.With an energy upgrade now under way, the structure continues to demonstrate its adaptability and usefulness, Mayor Tom Gorman said.But with Burlingame's declining years came heightened competition from the rise of interstates and motels, led by traveling families demanding ever larger quarters and amenities. When Burlingame finally sold his five-story fixture in 1963, it took just five years before new owner Marshall Chamberlain announced its closure.With many such foundational hotels, that would have spelled its doom. Changing construction designs and expensive retrofit requirements left the Mayo and Skirvin dormant for decades. But as with many historic elements of downtown Bartlesville, Phillips Petroleum stepped in to save the old Maire - transforming the structure into an office annex for the oil and gas giant's growing downtown complex."It has worked out well," said Singleton. "They redesigned this whole area, put in the specialty needs that we had as far as storage, humidity needs, that sort of thing.In Oklahoma City, that was the Skirvin. In Tulsa, the Mayo. In Bartlesville, that title went to 1914's Hotel Maire, an L-shaped structure of brick and stone built at an estimated cost of more than $150,000 (or $3.38 million today, by some constant dollar estimates).With the city's black-gold wealth fueling strong competition, the Maire went to great lengths to maintain its leadership role. It opened boasting of glass chandeliers, ceiling fans and wall lights lit by that newfangled electricity. A year after the 1928 stock market crash, the owners installed the first commercial Frigidaire cooling system west of the Mississippi, secured box springs and inner-springs mattresses for every bed, and piped ice water into every room."Sometimes being on the fifth floor is a little isolated," she said. "You don't get as much walk-in traffic. Other than that, with the renovation they did it served our purposes very well."

"Sometimes being on the fifth floor is a little isolated," she said. "You don't get as much walk-in traffic. Other than that, with the renovation they did it served our purposes very well."