Adelaide Stewart Taylor
When my grandfather was a little boy, Adelaide and Will Taylor lived across the street, a few blocks to the south. They were west of the Wirts’ place and cattywampus from the Tom Crellin House. That was back in the 1870s – a decade and more before the Baptist Church was built at the end of Clay Street. Oysterville wasn’t all that large a place and I’m pretty sure the families knew each other. For all I know, Adelaide helped my grandfather into the world on November 5, 1876. She was the town midwife – maybe the only one in the ares.
Adelaide’s husband, Will, drove stagecoach on the weatherbeach for Louis Loomis. When Mr. Loomis began talking about the possibility of a narrow-gauge railroad, Will perked up his ears. Not because he cared about trains especially, but because he saw possibilities. He had driven the stage past the Ocean Park Campgrounds for long enough that he recognized a promising area when he saw one. He and Adelaide and perhaps a few of their (eventually) nine children, moved to ‘The Park’ as it was called, in 1886 – three years after the town’s founding, but three years before it was officially named.
Crew of the shipwrecked Alice in front of the Taylor Hotel, 1909 (note hotel annex in background)
By the time his former boss’s railroad arrived in town in 1889, the Taylor’s had been in the hotel business for two full years. Their building, just about halfway between the beach approach and the train depot on Bay Avenue, had six rooms upstairs, mostly rented by the week or the month during the summer, though there were always a few year-round residents, as well. The Taylor family had their living quarters downstairs. The first floor also contained the kitchen and a commodious dining room where guests ate meals prepared with vegetables and berries grown in Adelaide’s large garden behind the hotel. It was not long before the Taylors built a three-story annex across the street to accommodate their many guests.
From 1887 to the mid-1930s, the hotel often served important community functions, from providing housing for shipwrecked sailors to hosting fund-raising activities for local and regional projects. The first street lights in Ocean Park were financed largely through proceeds from card parties held at the Taylor Hotel – “Admission 50 cents per person, 75 cents per couple; refreshments included.” In the 1930s, a week’s room and board was $10.00 per person.
Adelaide’s at the Taylor Hotel by Jean Stamper
Since Adelaide’s death in the 1930s, the Taylor Hotel building has had many owners and has served in many capacities. In its latest transformation, owner and loving steward Cyndy Hayward has leased the building to Colleen Smith, well-known proprietor of the Full Circle Café in Ocean Park. Along with a full array of coffees, Colleen is featuring ice cream and desserts in the front and, in the back, local books among other surprises! It’s an area ‘in transition’ says Colleen.
Today at Adelaide’s at 1:00, I’ll be giving a book talk: Jailhouse Stories from Early Pacific County. It covers the years 1886 – 1919 and, no doubt, I’ll be telling stories of people and events that Adelaide and Will Taylor knew a great deal about. I hope they’ll be ‘listening’!
I am glad the Taylor building continues to be loved and hope you get to delight many with your stories.