Temporary lighting hanging from the second-floor mezzanine illuminates work equipment and a jumpsuit around the Hotel Pawnee’s front desk. From left to right in the background, one can see hallways leading to the elevator shaft and south entrance and the opening to a one-time first-floor newsstand.
North Platte’s grande dame is slowly opening the doors of her classic wardrobe.
Painted-over aesthetic touches and even entire artworks hidden for decades are emerging in the early stages of owner/historic redeveloper Jay Mitchell’s revival of the 1929 Hotel Pawnee.
Since their arrival in mid-October, Mitchell and his core restoration team have been cleaning up, taking stock and beginning to uncover known and unknown gems inside the Canteen District’s worn but stout eight-story jewel.
Though renovating it all will take some time, they’re hoping to have the bottom two floors — the ones previous generations knew best — restored and ready for new businesses and public access by the end of next summer.
That includes the spacious first-floor lobby, its adjoining Green Room dining room and second-floor mezzanine balcony; the nine first-floor business spaces, anchored by the 1941 Tom-Tom Coffee Shop and 1936 White Horse Bar; and the second-floor Crystal Ballroom, in the worst shape after a ceiling cave-in several years ago.
As Mitchell guided us last week, we could see many tantalizing hints of the enduring and lost glories of the National Register of Historic Places structure.
Here’s some of our favorites:
» The western-shaded, semicircular 1940s eating bar in the Tom-Tom, where Mitchell and his workers are locating and carefully re-exposing painted-over wall renderings of a bison, a coyote and a bird near the south entrance.
On the coffee shop’s north wall, they’ve also spotted and begun to reveal a sitting Indian and what appears to be a cowboy.
“We’ll find out as we chip away (paint) from this,” Mitchell says.
» A detailed drawing of an Old West campsite that once offered a backdrop to a World War II-era newsstand just off the first-floor lobby.
» A 6-foot-tall, glass-encased and illuminated piece of Native American art, unknown even to Mitchell’s team, integrated into and hiding behind plywood and paneling in a wall near the White Horse Bar entrance.
“This is unique. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Mitchell says. “The worker who found it that day — it made his entire day (and) his entire week.”
» The stubborn majesty of the Pawnee’s imposing first-floor lobby, its Georgian Revival lines and original 1929 chandeliers and wall fixtures still in place. Mitchell intends to remove a late 1900s pink-and-cream paint scheme to recover the original darker shades.
» The still-crisp Art Deco glasswork and peacock seals marking the light fixtures and wall sconces beyond the lobby in the first-floor “Green Room” dining room.
It’s not green now, Mitchell says, but it will be again once he and his team determine the original shade among the various flavors of green exposed by peeling paint in one corner. They’re doing likewise in other parts of the hotel.
» Finally, the hopeful sadness amid the rubble that once was most of the plaster ceiling over the 300-seat Crystal Ballroom, where Gov. Arthur Weaver spoke at the Pawnee’s dedication dinner on Oct. 16, 1929.
Pipes in a frozen-over fire sprinkler broke several years ago, flooding above the plaster and causing most of it to fall in, Mitchell says.
But despite its appearance, he adds, the ballroom’s framework retains the stout construction with which former Gov. Keith Neville endowed the Pawnee, the neighboring 1929 Fox Theatre and the 1931 Paramount Theatre building across East Fifth Street.
“It looks very devastating and very horrible, and it is horrible,” he says. But “the structure is great. ... This can all be repaired.”
Photos and video: Peeling away the paint to reveal splendor of North Platte's Hotel Pawnee
Temporary lighting hanging from the second-floor mezzanine illuminates work equipment and a jumpsuit around the Hotel Pawnee’s front desk. From left to right in the background, one can see hallways leading to the elevator shaft and south entrance and the opening to a one-time first-floor newsstand.
The Georgian Revival lines of the lobby of North Platte’s 1929 Hotel Pawnee remain in evidence in this Nov. 24 photo looking north from the second-floor mezzanine. The double doors lead to the first-floor “Green Room” private dining room, which like the lobby still bears a late 1900s paint job that owner-historic redeveloper Jay Mitchell and his restoration team intend to peel away in favor of the original colors. The second-floor Crystal Ballroom sits behind the wall at upper right. For photos of early restoration work throughout the two bottom floors, see today’s Focus page. A more extensive photo gallery awaits on nptelegraph.com.
Ma Bell’s payphones are long since gone, but two telephone booths in the lobby leading to the 1929 Hotel Pawnee’s east entrance still testify to their original use.
This wall sconce in the first-floor lobby of the 1929 Hotel Pawnee is one of many fixtures that remain intact and installed in their original locations throughout the eight-story National Register of Historic Places structure.
A dining cart currently holds the last intact chandelier from the Hotel Pawnee’s Crystal Ballroom. It’s sitting for now in the first-floor lobby, currently being used as a staging area for owner Jay Mitchell and his restoration team. Mitchell says the chandelier apparently was rescued and stored around the time the second-floor meeting room’s plaster ceiling mostly collapsed as the result of a fire sprinkler leak. The pieces of the other five chandeliers have been found and appear to be in good enough shape to be reassembled, he says.
The top two tiers of a pair of peacock-adorned Art Deco ceiling light fixtures remain intact in the Hotel Pawnee’s first-floor “Green Room” dining room. Owner Jay Mitchell says each fixture can hold up to two more tiers. His restoration team has found some of them and should be able to use those to reproduce others, he said.
The Hotel Pawnee’s “Green Room” hasn’t been green for a long time, but owner Jay Mitchell says evidence of the first-floor dining room’s original green shade can be seen in peeling areas on the walls. He and his restoration team have found about 40 original chairs for the room throughout the 1929 hotel.
This ceiling rosette is the only one of six still intact on the remains of the original plaster ceiling of the 1929 Hotel Pawnee’s second-floor Crystal Ballroom. A fire-sprinkler freeze-over and pipe break some years ago caused most of the showcase room’s ceiling to fall in, taking five of its crystal chandeliers with it. The chandelier that hung off this rosette was rescued around that time and currently sits on a cart in the first-floor lobby, says owner Jay Mitchell. It’ll serve as a model for rebuilding the other chandeliers, the pieces of which have been found and recovered for renovation by Mitchell’s core restoration team.
The remnants of one of six rosettes from the Crystal Ballroom’s collapsed plaster ceiling sit on the floor of the Hotel Pawnee’s one-time showcase space, which could hold up to 300 people for public and private events. Members of owner Jay Mitchell’s restoration team found these pieces scattered on the floor and gathered them as shown.
Despite its disastrous appearance after a plaster ceiling collapse several years ago, the framework of the Hotel Pawnee’s second-floor Crystal Ballroom remains stout for reconstruction, says owner Jay Mitchell. Most of the ceiling fell in as the result of a break in a frozen-over fire-sprinkler pipe. But the wooden beams above remain “extremely solid,” he says.
One of the Hotel Pawnee Crystal Ballroom’s original six chandeliers hangs forlorn and largely stripped amid the still-solid wooden beams in the 1929 hotel’s longtime second-floor showcase. The pieces of five damaged or collapsed chandeliers have been found, and a sixth was rescued intact years ago and sits in the first-floor lobby to serve as a model for rebuilding the others, says owner Jay Mitchell.
The 1929 Hotel Pawnee’s first-floor coffee shop still has the eight-stool semicircular bar and multicolored overhead fixture from its existence as the Tom-Tom Coffee Shop. Originally known as The Coffee Pot and done in an Egyptian motif, it was remodeled and reopened to the public on Aug. 3, 1941. Jay Mitchell, a California historic redeveloper and the Pawnee’s current owner, plans to restore and revive the Tom-Tom as it appeared then, including the coffee shop’s long-hidden outdoor neon sign that was among the first things his restoration team uncovered upon arriving in mid-October.
In restoring the Hotel Pawnee’s 1941 Tom-Tom Coffee Shop, owner Jay Mitchell and his restoration team are using historic photos to locate artistic touches long hidden under more recent paint jobs. They’re carefully removing those newer paint layers to expose the figures underneath, as seen here with what might be the lower leg of a cowboy, his foot adorned with boot and spur, on the first-floor coffee shop’s north wall. More such painstaking work lies ahead to fully expose this figure and others on the Tom-Tom’s walls, Mitchell says.
Painstaking photographic research and close inspection have allowed California historic redeveloper Jay Mitchell’s restoration team to begin recovering original artistic touches throughout the 1929 Hotel Pawnee. They include this gold-colored painting of a bison near the north door of the 1941 Tom-Tom Coffee Shop, long covered up by newer paint jobs. Mitchell’s workers are carefully removing those newer layers as part of their plans to restore the Canteen District jewel’s historic appearance. Renderings of a coyote, bird and sitting Indian are among others identified.
Months of historic research helped current Hotel Pawnee owner Jay Mitchell and his restoration team prepare for the mid-October launch of their bottom-to-top redevelopment of the 1929 National Register of Historic Places structure. This view looking north inside the first-floor 1941 Tom-Tom Coffee Shop shows not only surviving fixtures, such as the eight-seat circular bar still intact at back, but also original tables, chairs and coat stands Mitchell’s crew has recovered from throughout the eight-story hotel.
This artwork depicting an Old West campsite sat for years behind a first-floor wall at the 1929 Hotel Pawnee. Owner Jay Mitchell says it likely was the backdrop for a newsstand that operated in that part of the hotel during World War II.
Many decades’ worth of paint layers have peeled away from this corner of the 1929 Hotel Pawnee’s first-floor beauty shop space. It’s far from the only such corner throughout the bottom two floors of the eight-story hotel. Owner Jay Mitchell says such areas are useful as his restoration team determines the proper shades in use when the Pawnee opened.
These barstools from the Hotel Pawnee’s 1936 White Horse Bar, found elsewhere in the eight-story hotel, are lined up approximately where they once surrounded the long-vanished bar. Some of the first-floor business’s original elements nonetheless remain, most notably the iconic illuminated photo of a white horse atop a hill at upper right.
The 1936 White Horse Bar space on the Hotel Pawnee’s first floor still has this glass-enclosed, three-panel photo of a white horse atop a hill on the east wall. Current owner Jay Mitchell says the photo most likely was colorized from a black-and-white print. The visible lights here are reflections from other lights, but the photo was illuminated from behind and can be again, he says. Mitchell intends to both restore and revive the bar and the 1941 Tom-Tom Coffee Shop, both on the first floor.
This short but colorful table, now sitting in the first-floor 1936 White Horse Bar space in the Hotel Pawnee, is one of many original pieces of furniture found throughout the eight-story hotel. As in other parts of the building, historic photos have helped identify where various pieces originally were used, owner-historic redeveloper Jay Mitchell says.
This approximately 6-foot-tall piece of Native American art was uncovered recently as restoration work began in the 1936 White Horse Bar space on the Hotel Pawnee’s first floor. Integrated into a wall near the bar’s south-side windows, it was hidden behind plywood and paneling until a member of owner Jay Mitchell’s restoration team found it.
Todd von Kampen
Special projects reporter
I'm a 35-year journalist, near-lifelong Nebraskan, Ogallala product and three-time Telegraph writer.
Susan Szuch
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I'm an Illinois native with an interest in science reporting and online storytelling.
