As local travel experts, we know what travelers are looking for when it comes to finding the perfect accommodations for their next trip. To compile our lists, we scour the internet to find properties with excellent ratings and reviews, desirable amenities, nearby attractions, and that something special that makes a destination worthy of traveling for.
Have you ever heard of the Waldo Hotel in Clarksburg, West Virginia? Once one of the most luxurious hotels in the state, this 120-year-old building now stands forsaken and forlorn, abandoned for more than 30 years. There’s a story there, of course. A story of power. A story of loss. A story of abandonment. Yet not a story completely without hope.
Eight stories tall. Eleven bays wide. Anchored with nine-story towers on each of the four corners. Welcome to the massively grand Waldo Hotel, which took 1,000 men and $400,000 (roughly $14 million in today's dollars) to build in the first decade of the 1900s.
Waldo Hotel was the brainchild of Nathan Goff, a prominent West Virginia lawyer and politician who served as a Union General in the Civil War as well as a U.S. Senator and Congressman and was known personally by Presidents Lincoln, Grant, and Hayes. As his prestigious resume suggests, Goff needed somewhere impressive to host all his prominent guests. And impressive is exactly what the Waldo Hotel was; in its heyday, it was one of the most luxurious hotels in the entire state of West Virginia.
The Great Depression hit Waldo Hotel hard. Still, Goff's sons and grandson and other family members carried on the hotel's prestigious legacy for years, all the way until 1964, when Waldo Hotel was sold to Salem College and transformed into a dormitory, after which it was sold again and morphed into some offices and apartments through at least 1980.
But around that time, the grand old Waldo Hotel was abandoned. All life left that three-story entrance lobby. No more dances were held in the two ballrooms. No more guests filled the many guestrooms. No more feet clambered up and down the grand staircase. And in the decades since, nature has done her work. Ceilings are caved in. Rubble covers the floors.
Some have estimated that it will take $14-$21 million to bring the Waldo back to her glory days. But all hope is not lost--many still love and revere the history housed here, and several nonprofits are committed to seeing Waldo Hotel restored, however long that might take.
Did you ever visit Waldo Hotel before it was abandoned? How about since? Surely some of the patrons here at Waldo Hotel in Clarksburg, West Virginia also visited the nearby Minard’s Spaghetti Inn for an authentic Italian meal.
OnlyInYourState may earn compensation through affiliate links in this article. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
