Kevin Daniel Came to Visit Today

Kevin Daniel Came to Visit Today

Kevin lived here as a teenager...

He wanted to take a look at our Grand Old Dame and reminisce about times passed here.

When I invited him in he was like a kid in a candy store. The stories were rolling off his tongue, one after the other; I couldn’t keep up.

He's quite an interesting man who lives in Chico. He came here to do some prospecting with his metal detector. He told me that he'd be heading to the old landfill site to look for buried treasure. How interesting, right?

His parents were managers here in 1973-74. Carol Monday was his step-dad, and John DeShane was the owner. In those days this was a combination of hotel and apartments, the hotel rooms rented for $4.00 per room. Kevin had a bedroom near the elevator on the 1st floor. That room is now the bedroom for the Mark Twain suite. Sadly the suite was already booked so I wasn't able to offer it to Kevin.

I did however offered him the suite next door which is equally as beautiful, he could not believe his luck to be offered a huge discount and couldn’t resist. I later hear him on the phone to his brother “boasting” about his being able to stay in this beautiful suite as a guest.

When he was a teenager his job was to vacuum all four floors and both sets of stairs for the grand total of $2.00. He thought it was a fortune in those days and didn’t think a thing about all the work involved, the carpet was red which must have shown every single speck of dust. He also had the job of waxing the lobby floor, the lobby is huge, again he got a dollar or two for that. Wow, how times have changed.

When he was fourteen years of age he had tonsillitis, which resulted in a visit to the hospital in Mount Shasta. When he was discharged his parents decided to go the The Travelers Hotel across the street for coffee; Kevin was left in charge. As luck would have it a guest arrived, it was tremendously painful for him to talk but he still registered the guest, even as a kid he had a good business head on his shoulders.

What we now call the Cabaret room was called the Black Egg room - he has no idea why ;-D

Kevin went to school with The Manfredi’s, and he remembers Sharon who is now the fourth generation Manfredi to run the gas station and shop.

Walking around Dunsmuir today he bumped into several old school friends, he is delighted at how many of them still live and work here.

We hope Kevin enjoys his stay and comes back to visit again. He’s camera shy so sorry no pics. ;-D