Workers this week began demolishing the 123-year-old Vendome Hotel in downtown La Salle.

Because the Vendome abuts buildings on each side, workers began by carefully removing bricks along the upper edge of the east wall.

“They are beginning the process of prepping the building so it doesn’t come down on the neighboring buildings,” said Andy Bacidore, fire chief and building inspector.

The city awarded the demolition bid to River City Demolition, Peoria, for $331,250. The contractor said demolition will be finished by early September, Bacidore said.

The resulting empty lot will be backfilled with rock and soil. The council last year considered a parking lot for this space but there are no plans yet for the site, Bacidore said.

The hotel has been a fixture in downtown La Salle since about 1895 but was not the Vendome until 1915. Newspaper stories and historical records document the building’s 13 decades at the southwest corner of First and Gooding streets.

Original Wisconsin Hotel

The building at 540 First St. opened in about 1895 as the Wisconsin Hotel, aka Wisconsin House. In 1892, Blake & Burke of Rock Island received a plumbing contract of $1,500 for work on the hotel.

The hotel was first owned and operated by Mrs. John Scheuring and Edward Scheuring, and advertisements said street cars pass every five minutes.

In 1897, the Wisconsin hosted a banquet for a group from Princeton who visited downtown La Salle’s Zimmerman Opera House. In 1903 the Henry Giants football team stayed there before and after their game against the La Salle high school team. For a short time in the early 1900s, the hotel was known as the Great Britton.

In 1913 it was announced that the Wisconsin Hotel would be adding two stories and the Miles European Hotel on Marquette Street would be adding a fourth story. And by summer’s end, the new La Salle Inn would open, according to a news brief.

The La Salle Inn actually opened in 1915 under the now more familiar name of the Kaskaskia Hotel.

The New Vendome in 1915

In the same year that the Kaskaskia opened, the Wisconsin became the Vendome Hotel, owned and operated by William Lund. In 1918 a downtown fire destroyed two buildings and damaged the Vendome and a furniture warehouse.

Fire struck again in 1925, causing an estimated $75,000 in damage to the Vendome. More than 100 guests escaped, alerted by night clerk Joseph Tamplin after he was awakened by a dog barking in the basement. The German police dog, Duke, was owned by Joseph Weintraut, who lived at the hotel, according to news report.

A year earlier, Duke was the subject of a brief circulated by International News Service, saying the dog was the official mail carrier for the Vendome. At 11 every night, Duke carried the mail to the post office to be placed on outgoing trains, according to the report.

From the Elks to demolition

The Benevolent and Protective Order of the Elks Lodge 584, established in 1902, held its meetings at the hotel. The organization later became known as the La Salle-Peru Elks Lodge 584. In about 1950 Vendome proprietors Mr. and Mrs. William Adams sold the hotel to the Elks. In 1971 the Elks closed the hotel but continued holding lodge meetings and functions there.

By 2004 the building was vacant and after the La Salle-Peru Elks disbanded, the property was sold at auction in 2007 to a group of investors. The 2008-2009 financial crisis eroded plans to renovate and develop it, according to one investor in 2016.

The building’s roof and interior floors collapsed to the first floor. In 2016 the city moved to buy back taxes and take deed on the property to seek a buyer or demolition contractor. The city awarded a demolition contract in June.