Hotel Staffer Marvels: ‘All the Rooms Are Lighted Up With Electric Light’

A former employee of the Hotel del Coronado—a transplanted New Yorker—wrote a letter to his family that noted:

“There are a number of novel things to be seen at this place, in and about the hotel, all the rooms are lighted up with electric light … It seems rather odd to go to your room and turn on the light, just as you would gas, and besides it saves all the trouble and annoyance of matches, and can be turned on or off at leisure.”

Of course, the letter by Hugh Francis Griffin was sent back in February 1888.

It’s one of many tales told in a hotel history noted in Monday’s travel blog at The New York Times.

According to Azadeh Ensha’s blog post:

Not to be missed are the chapters about the hotel’s evolving culinary style. An 1897 dinner menu had oysters on shell, sweet pickled figs, and boiled leg of mutton with turnips. A 1940 cocktail menu, for example, showed that hotel revelers had their choice of good-times tonics ranging from a 40-cent Tom Collins to a pricier two-dollar French “75.”

The 208-page book—Hotel del Coronado History at 125—is being sold for $39.95.