Lou’s View: THE FALLON IN ITS PRIME
By Lou Bernard
If you’re talking history in Lock Haven, sooner or later it’s going to come up. It stands along East Water Street with an air of past dignity, like a….I don’t know, a thing that stands with past dignity….I’m not so good at metaphors. Or is that a simile? I never know. What I am good at is writing history. I’m talking about the Fallon Hotel.
The Fallon has been standing at 131 East Main Street for over a century and a half now. It was once a classy, wonderful place.
Mark Twain stayed there once. It’s been through a long and involved history.
It began with Florida, and a queen.
Queen Maria Christina of Spain had sold Florida to America for five million dollars. Looking for ways to invest some of that money, she turned her attention to Clinton County, Pennsylvania. Her agents in America, John and Christopher Fallon, saw the business potential in the lumbering, mining, ironmaking, and shipping industries, and the queen bought up property and sunk a lot of money into the area.
Since she was making such big investments, she decided to build a place to stay on the off-chance she ever came to visit, and bring her whole entourage. Hey, we’ve all been there. So she built a mansion in Farrandsville, and also the Fallon Hotel.
Solid brick. Four stories. A hundred feet along Water Street. The interior had mirrors and furniture shipped in from Philadelphia. Two wings extended out the back of the building and enclosed an elaborate garden with a fountain, where concerts were sometimes performed. The garden even had a zoo in the 1870s, complete with a monkey named Ike, who was said to have the run of the place.
In its heyday, the Fallon was basically a self-contained ecosystem for the guests. There was a newsstand for reading material, and of course a bar. There was a small library, and a barber on the premises in case of haircut emergencies. Pretty much anything you needed could be found without leaving the building.
There was even a boat landing. At the point where the garden met the Susquehanna River, a dock was built to launch boats from the hotel property. Long before Water Street saw its first Regatta on Labor Day, there were elaborate Regattas in the river, held for the pleasure of the guests.
In addition to boats, you could enter and leave the Fallon by horse and wagon, too. A local man named Ben Whiting ran the service, taking a carriage drawn by several horses back and forth to the railroad stations. Picking people up from the stations, Whiting was known to frequently call out,”Free bus to the Fallon House!”
Once upon a time, it was a popular meeting place for local groups and clubs. The Rotary and the Kiwanis met there, and many meetings and conferences were held there. Out of town visitors came to these to see the majestic old hotel.
In 1874, the hotel was purchased by the mayor. Mayor John W. Smith bought the hotel and moved in. Smith was a lumberman who served in several different offices throughout Clinton County before being elected as Lock Haven’s second mayor in 1874. He even died there in 1899, falling over on the stairs and passing away from congestion of the lungs.
Obviously, today the Fallon Hotel has seen better days. It’s been neglected, and isn’t in good condition. But looking at it, you can tell that it was once a classy place, one of the grandest, most well-known landmarks in Lock Haven. I hope that one day, we can bring it back to that again.
