Sewickley Herald

              The Herald
The Sewickley Valley’s Home-News Weekly
Voi. XXIV. No. 26.
SEWICKLEY. PA., FRIDAY. MARCH 4, 1927.
Price 5 Cents.
NEW HOTEL FINANCED BY COMMUNITY EFFORT
ROCHESTER rejoiced in a triumph shared by the whole community, when a dinner and appropriate ceremonies marked the opening for business of its new $450,000 hotel, the Penn-BeaVer, a modern structure that will serve long-felt needs in this place where several of the busiest through-traffic highways of the country meet and intersect. Through the valleys of the Ohio and the Beaver and over the hills this growing multitude of passenger and freight-carrying machines has increased, and has paid but scant attention to the old town at the forks of the rivers. But there were some citizens of that town, who realized its possibilities, and have now prepared to serve the traveling public and prosper through that service.
The new hotel is a modern, fireproof structure.
with 100 rooms, 75 of them with bath. The structure is five stories high, with provisions for an additional story, is of Georgian architecture with exterior of red brick and contains in addition to the hotel proper a drug store, barber shop, bowling alley and pool room. There are more than three hundred stockholders, nearly all in Rochester and the immediate vicinity and adjoining valley towns. There are several large stockholders, and a very large number of holders of a few shares each, making the hotel indeed a community enterprise. The construction work, furnishing, etc., was nearly all done locally—it is wonderful what a variety of specialized commodities are obtainable in the Beaver and Ohio valleys—keeping the money largely invested right at home.
The opening ceremonies last week included a dinner for 250 guests, presided over by William S. Townsend, president of the hotel company, and attended by General J. Leslie Kincaid, president of the American Hotels Company which is to operate the Penn-Beaver, the new manager, Warren B. Free, and the managers of Various Pittsburgh hotels and other members of the hotelmen’s national organization as well as other prominent out-of-town guests and many local stockholders.
The officers of the Beaver Valley Community Hotel Company are President, William S. Townsend; Vice Presidents, David W. Denton, Alonzo S. Batchelor, J. T. Anderson, Earl M. Craig; Treasurer, William A. Mitchener; Secretary, Walter M. Goettman.