Did anyone here ever "visit" the Colonial Hotel?

[greekspeak]

I was fascinated by this old place. I never got a chance to go in. Ever. Then they tore it down for Springfield's favorite ground cover, asphalt. I guess at some point they gutted the old place. BUt I wonder to what extent. I would love to hear stories, if anyone has them, about visits to the Colonial.

[RaccoonCC]

I was there when it was being demolished. I never got to go inside, but it looked pretty cool from the outside. Why did they tear it down anyway? I heard something about it made of asbestos building materials or something....i duno.

[greekspeak]

My understanding of why it was demolished is because it was more expensive to do anything constructive with it than to just demolish it. So SMS or whatever it calls itself these days, being the great custodians of Springfield's history that they are, of course turned it into another asphalt wasteland. It is hard to beleive, but at one time the pictures of the intersection of Jefferson and St. Louis suggests almost an urban cavern effect, due to the Woodruff and the big Colonial, as well as the large buildings across Jefferson Street. Well, we do have the Woodruff building. I guess we should be happy enough about that.

[Willard]

Ok, you have just touched on a subject that is a sore spot for me... it's on my running list of "Reasons I Hate SMSU!" Anywho... The Colonial was built about 100 years ago by Doug Landers (ie Landers Theater and Landers Building aka now State Office Building). Anyway it and the Metropolitin Hotel were the two most ritzy places in Springfield to stay at until the Kentwood Arms Hote was built by John Woodruff. The Colonial was also well known on US 66 as well. Central HS (Springfield HS) used to have prom in the ballroom of the Colonial as well.

Anyway by the 1970's it had become a pretty bad dive and so the owner closed it down. sometime in the late 1980's ('87 or '88) The owner gave it as a present to SMSU for them to use for more classroom space or another dormatory. (this was around the time Downtown had hit it's alltime low point). Anyway about 1998, SMS had not done anything to try and keep the building structurally sound and they had it inspected and were told it should be condemed... so they had it condemed and turned it into a parking lot. That god damn son of a whore mother fucking university says they give a damn about the community but the only fucking thing they care about is what's in it for them. They even wanted to buy Heer's about 5 years ago and tear it down for another god damn parking lot.

Ok, so now that my screaming is done... I do have a friend who was in the Colonial before they tore it down. He even has some things from there (I have an old matchbook and some old postcards of it too). Hiccup knows this guy...

[greekspeak]

I HATE the way SMS has ruined the central part of Springfield. Street after street after street of character filled neighborhood flattened for asphalt and concrete. They HATE trees and grass. The buildings they DO retain get gutted and made over to look like something out of East Germany. They are relentless in their attacks on central Springfield. I used to work in Res Life, in an office, and had to go to a lot of meetings. One was a VP salivating over tearing down older buildings. His theory was that old things were bad because they breed crime. I am not kidding. I promise you. He had slides of "crime breeding" buildings that needed to be demolished because of their evil generation. One was the Engelnook, which looks to have been saved. But they basically want to take everything south and east of the Square and turn it into SMS territory. This will involve demolition of what is left on Walnut from midway between Hammons west to Jefferson, and most of what is on Elm west of National over to Jefferson.