Broadview Hotel East St. Louis, Illinois

Text courtesy of the National Register of Historic Places, a program of the National Parks Service. Minor transcription errors or changes in formatting may have occurred; please see the Nomination Form PDF for official text. Some information may have become outdated since the property was nominated for the Register.

The Broadview Hotel in East St. Louis, Illinois is locally significant under National Register of Historic Places criteria A for Commerce and C for Architecture. Completed in 1927, the sevenstory Classical Revival fireproof hotel was built at a time in which East St. Louis was investing in making over the city's architecture and political culture following a devastating 1917 race riot. The Broadview Hotel was the city's largest and finest hotel, and fulfilled its developers vision of building a hotel that would be a regional and statewide convention and meeting venue. Major organizations met in the hotel through the 1950s. Additionally, the hotel provided luxury rooms to visitors and even some permanent residents, as well as amenities in its restaurants and rathskeller enjoyed by travellers and locals. The Broadview also is an excellent example of hotel design and construction in the St. Louis region in the 1920s. Designed under the direction of Arthur J. Widmer for Widmer Engineering Company, the Broadview embodies the principles of Classical Revival design as well as modern urban hotel planning. East St. Louis would build of larger or finer hotel. During its heyday, the Broadview Hotel helped solidify the status of East St. Louis as an emerging large city and as Illinois's largest downstate city. The period of significance begins with completion in 1927 and runs until 1957, when the leasing of space by Southern Illinois University signaled the end of the hotel's significant history.