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McCormick Hotel - 120 W. Fourth
also known as the McCormack Hotel
- no postmark but dated 10 June 1910
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| The postcard above dated 10 June 1910 shows the McCormick Hotel and Cafe on the northeast corner of Fourth and Pine. It also shows the Stardome, which was an outdoor amphitheatre. The theatre was opened in 1909 and closed in early 1912 when the stage was removed and taken to Mulberry to be placed in the Thompson Lukinbill Airdome. The advertisements on the front of the Stardome are the Bowman Furniture and Undertaking Co. (117-119 E. Fourth), Lindburgh's Drug Store (324 N. Broadway) and the E. V. Duncan Clothing & Shoe Store (410 N. Broadway). City directories and newspaper records show that the different spellings of the name were interchangable, but there were more listings as McCormick than McCormack. The brick building in the far right is the Owsley & Hall Grocers. The empty lot behind the hotel was where the city street department was located. |
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The McCormick Hotel opened approximately in 1908 by William T. Campbell and his wife Lucebra M. (Kennett) McCormick a few years after their marriage in 1906. Lucebra or Lou as she was called, had been married to John McCormick who had passed away a few years before she married Campbell and had been supporting herself by renting furnished rooms at 406 1/2 N. Broadway. At some point in 1909 she took control of the hotel from her husband. Not sure if William T. Campbell died but in the 1911 Pittsburg City Directory she was listed as the owner and proprietor of the hotel. |
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On December 19, 1913, Jesse Neet of Pittsburg shot and killed Mary Holcomb Pyle in front of the McCormick Hotel. According to news articles in the Pittsburg Daily Headlight, Jesse, age 22 and worked for the ATSF Railroad as a brakeman, had fallen in love with Mary, 15, but she ignored him as she was married at the time. After an afternoon of drinking beer, Jesse followed Mary and her sister as they were walking up Fourth Street to go downtown and confronted her in front of the hotel. They argued and he pulled out a pistol, shooting her twice once in the head and the other in the neck. Jesse escaped down Pine Street leaving Mary bleeding on the sidewalk. She died a few hours later. He was captured the following day at his mother's in Scammon where he was taken to Girard and placed in the County Jail. After a preliminary hearing on January 6, 1914, where Mrs. L. M. McCormick testified to what she saw, Jesse pled guilty to second degree murder and was sentenced to 30 years of hard labor at the State Penitentiary in Lansing on February 21, 1914. After a few months he was transfered to the Reformitory in Hutchinson where on August 30, 1915 the state board recommended he be paroled due to his young age. Jesse was released on September 14, 1915 despite the protests from Judge Curran who had sentenced him. Jesse later served during WWI in the 24th New York Infantry and is found in 1940 living in Long Beach, California with his mother and stepfather.
-Pittsburg Daily Headlight articles from 20 Dec 1913, 23 Dec 1913, 6 Jan 1914, 6 Mar 1914, 16 Sept 1915 and 26 Sept 1918.
-1940 Federal Census |
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