Built as a first-class hotel from 1916 to 1917, it is significant for the part it played in the city's social history and commercial development.

Radio station WIAS broadcast from the hotel from 1928, when it moved to Ottumwa from Burlington, Iowa, until 1934 when it went off the air.

[1] The Neoclassical building was designed by the prominent Des Moines architectural firm of Proudfoot, Bird and Rawson.

The exterior of the building is covered in dark brown brick and features classical details in terra cotta.

It is capped with a galvanized iron cornice decorated with egg-and-dart, dentils, triglyphs and metopes, rosettes, and swags.