The Middlesex Hotel Through the Years

Today the site of the Middlesex Hotel serves as a memorial honoring Concordians who have been lost at war. Had you visited this location two hundred years ago, however, you would have been able to walk through the lively halls of a hotel that served a sundry population of selectmen, shop workers, high society ball-goers, and prisoners from the nearby county jail. Henry David Thoreau refers to the Middlesex Hotel as "extravagant" in the pages of his 1854 Walden.

Over its almost century-long existence, the Middlesex Hotel weathered a series of dramatic events. Having burned down in 1845, it was rebuilt and reopened the following year. Yet in the ensuing decades the hotel struggled from poor management on the part of a string of different owners. Moreover, the ease of railroad travel, which decreased travelers’ dependence on overnight lodging, hurt business. In 1882, the hotel shut down permanently. For almost two decades the building stood abandoned, its broken windowpanes letting in rain, leaves, wind, and snow through the seasons.

Once a Concord mainstay and located within the heart of town, the Middlesex Hotel survives in multiple vantages in countless historic maps and engravings, some of which are featured in this exhibit.