The Oakland Hotel

The Oakland Hotel. Early in the 1870's, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad realized an asset to its passenger train service would be having a resort hotel in this area. First, it built the Deer Park Hotel in 1873, which proved so successful that in 1875 they started construction of the 300 room Oakland Hotel. The railroad chose land directly across the Little Youghiogheny River from the Oakland train station as a site for the new hotel. A short bridge spanned the river west of the station platform and supported a driveway through park-like lawns up to the front of the hotel. . . In addition to the main building, there were auxiliary buildings of which one was a laundry for both the hotel and its guests. . . Two large 250,000-gallon railroad water tanks, originally designed to supply water to steam locomotives, were situated on the crest of the hill behind the building to provide water for hotel use. . . The Oakland Hotel was well advertised every season and many of the same patrons returned year after year to spend part of the summer. . . One of the unique features of the hotel was the telegraph office in the hotel's lobby. The telegraph office had a line that connected it to the lobby of the Deer Park Hotel. although they only extended six miles, in the early 1890's the hotel -to-hotel wires were attached to telephones and became the first telephone line in Garrett County. . . In 1900, due to dwindling patronage, the railroad sold the Oakland Hotel to a medical group for a proposed sanatorium. The venture was unsuccessful and hotel was torn down in 1909 for its lumber. . . Only this stone "gas house," in front of you where artificial gas was generated for lights and cooking stoves during the hotel's early days, remains to document the existence of the 300 room Oakland Hotel.