Glenwood Hotel

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Kenova’s Glenwood Hotel opened in 1902 but
 declining business forced it to close in 1917.

File photo | The Herald-Dispatch

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When L.T. Peck and Floyd Hoard announced their plans for the
 Glenwood Hotel in Kenova, they proposed building a grand,
 five-story brick building that would cost $100,000. But the
 national financial panic of 1893 delayed things.
 When the hotel was finally completed in 1902,
 it was a much more modest structure.

Kenova is the largest community in highly rural Wayne County.
 Its history was shaped in large measure by its location on
 the Ohio and Big Sandy rivers where West Virginia,
 Kentucky and Ohio meet — hence the town‘s
 fanciful name. It sounds like it might be
 the name of an Indian tribe, but in
 fact it was devised by taking a
 few letters from each of the
 three states’ names

The town of Kenova was spawned in 1889 when
 the Norfolk and Western Railway (N&W)
 decided to extend its railway through
 Wayne County. A bridge over the
 Ohio — the first to be built between
 Wheeling and Cincinnati — was
completed in 1892 and Kenova
 was chartered in 1894.

A building boom quickly followed as the N&W originally
 planned to build facilities in Kenova to service their
 trains. With the boom came an influx of workers
 to build homes, businesses, handsome streets
 and an ornate brick train station. A hotel
was obviously needed to house some of
 these workers as well as visitors
 to the new town.

As noted on the Clio local history webpage, construction
 of the Glenwood Hotel began in 1899 but when the
 financial panic halted work on it, Peck and
 Hoard instead built a smaller, two-story
 frame hotel nearby. When the smaller
 structure was destroyed by a fire
 in 1900, they decided to finish
 building the original
 Glenwood afterwards.

In 1902, the N&W decided to relocate its facilities from
 Kenova to Portsmouth, Ohio. As a result, Kenova’s
 growth stagnated, and the Glenwood Hotel found
 it increasingly more difficult to continue
 operating. It closed in 1917. Over the
 years, most of the structure was
 demolished, leaving a small
 portion to operate as an
 apartment building.

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Note:  This Article and picture appeared in the Herald-Dispatch Newspaper on Oct. 15, 2024.

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