8 Wonders of Kansas architecture

An 8 Wonder of Kansas Architecture

Windsor Hotel, Garden City

Address: 419 N. Main, Garden City, KS 67846
Phone:
Website: https://www.facebook.com/p/Windsor-Hotel-Restoration-Project-100064448208677/

The Windsor Hotel was chosen as a finalist for the 8 Wonders of Kansas Architecture because of its paradigm-setting architectural feature of the open atrium with surrounding hotel rooms in 1887.

This 1887 innovation has served as a model for hotel design throughout the country. This four-story 55,000 square foot building opened with 125 hotel rooms, a large dining room, and 200 foot worth of space on the ground floor for businesses. The atrium was located on the second floor and extended upward for three stories and was topped by a vaulted skylight.

The Windsor Hotel is truly unique not only in style and design but purpose as well. It stood for opportunity and enterprise, for accommodation and dreams of wealth, a promise of a better future. Known as the "Waldorf of the Prairies," the hotel became headquarters for heads of wealthy cattle firms before the turn of the century. "It's spacious corridors and spindled patios were constantly thronged with booted and spurred cowmen. Cattle deals amounting to millions of dollars have been transacted over the long table in the great inner court."

The Windsor was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. In 1977 the Hotel portion was closed. The Hotel is currently owned by the Finney County Preservation Alliance who continues to work on renovation plans for the building.

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