Mount Union borough

The Beers Hotel

The Beers Hotel stood at the northwest corner of Jefferson and Shirley Streets in Mount Union, across Jefferson Street from the Crum building. Charles Howard Welch's 1909 history says it began as a frame dwelling owned by Belle Shaver, built in the early 1860s, and that a part of that first house was incorporated in the rear of the hotel.

William Seibert added to the house in 1881 and opened a hotel. After his death his widow carried it on, and in 1889, Welch says, she sold out to Anderson Beers of Tell Township. Welch also says Mr. Beers ran the American House on Water Street for about a year and moved to the corner in April 1890. A county biography published in 1897 has him in Mount Union from 1888, running the American House for eighteen months before he bought the old Seibert House and changed its name to the Commercial House.

Anderson Beers died on April 9, 1894. His son Edward M. Beers and his widow, Mary Beers, kept the hotel going, and the 1897 biography calls the son a successful and popular landlord. That same biography says the house was run on temperance principles.

Welch wrote that the hotel had been remodeled in the past year, with additions and a complete third story. It had 45 rooms, steam heat and electric light, with E. M. Beers as proprietor. It was one of two hotels in town, the Kenmar being the smaller, and Welch noted that neither had a saloon attached.

Other businesses were in the hotel's block too. The First National Bank opened in the corner of the hotel on October 1, 1902, and moved to its own new building in January 1909. A jewelry store then had that corner room, and a barbershop, a drugstore and a clothing store were also in the block when Welch wrote.

Edward M. Beers also held public office. Welch's 1909 history calls him the present mayor of Mount Union, while the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress lists him as mayor from 1910 to 1914 and as an associate judge of Huntingdon County from 1914 to 1923, and he served in Congress from March 4, 1923, until his death on April 21, 1932.

The 1994 National Register nomination for the Mount Union Historic District calls the Hotel Beers a large three-story brick building built about 1860, and says its downtown location, urban scale and numerous storefronts had made it a local landmark. The date is the nomination's own. Welch's account describes a frame house that was enlarged by additions. The nomination says the hotel was demolished about 1985 and that a convenience store and gas station had since taken its place.

Checked against the record. We read Charles Howard Welch's 1909 history of Mount Union and the 1897 Commemorative Biographical Encyclopedia of the Juniata Valley on their page images, along with the 1994 National Register nomination for the Mount Union Historic District and the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Where they differ, the story gives both or says so. Welch and the directory bring Anderson Beers to Mount Union in 1889, while the 1897 biography says 1888. The directory dates his son's takeover to 1895, while Welch and the 1897 biography date the father's death to April 9, 1894. Welch calls the house the Commercial House on one page and the Commercial Hotel on another, and he uses both Mrs. and Miss for Belle Shaver, so the story uses neither title. What stays open: nothing we read says when the building became brick, and the nomination's date of about 1860 does not match Welch's account of a frame house. The nomination counts three hotels in Mount Union between 1900 and 1950, and we have not identified the third. We have not seen the Mount Union Times or the Huntingdon Daily News for these years. Our searches of the Pennsylvania Newspaper Archive found no report of a fire at the hotel, which does not show there was none. The demolition date rests on the nomination's "about 1985," and we have not confirmed what stands on the corner today.

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