Construction of a new hotel at the corner 12th and Duane streets began in the spring of 1924, starting on the heels of a post-fire downtown rebuild in Astoria. 

Plans for the building, which was then under the ownership of Charles Niemi, were drawn up with four floors and 51 rooms, though two weeks later, an additional fifth floor would be added for a total of 68 rooms.

On that same day, the Elliott family signed a lease to operate the hotel and its namesake became official.

Jeremiah and Margaret Elliott had married in New Castle, Pennsylvania, in 1885. The couple’s first child, Flora, was born the next year, then their son, John, came along six years later.

Meanwhile, Clarence Short was growing up just 100 miles south of New Castle in the tiny town of Dawson, Pennsylvania. Some years later, Short married Flora in Colorado and the two families eventually made their way to Oregon.

For a while, Short managed a J.C. Penney in La Grande as Flora raised their son, Harold. Meanwhile, father and son Jeremiah and John Elliott ran the Angela Hotel in Portland — but the opportunity to run Hotel Elliott soon brought the families back together in Astoria.

For decades, the hotel primarily served working-class visitors. It kept its unique set of luxuries, however. Advertising itself as “a modern hotel in a modern city” with, of course, its slogan of “wonderful beds,” the concrete building stationed its lobby on the first floor where it remains to this day, now with automatic elevators to take guests up to their desired floors.

Floors originally featured shared bathrooms. However, rooms were equipped with large closets and shoe shine brushes. Furniture throughout the hotel was of dark wood, upholstered with the finest of leathers. A large phonograph entertained guests in a lounge on the second floor.

In 1928, Flora opened the Hotel Elliott Coffee Shop, where the hotel’s wine bar is now located. Curiously, over the span of 14 years, the Hotel Elliott Coffee Shop changed ownership at least seven times.

One owner, Ernie Anderson, died suddenly at the age of 47. Another owner, Benny Dixon, forced the restaurant to close its doors for several months after his mysterious disappearance.

The coffee shop closed permanently in 1942. That same year, the property was purchased by Short as well as John and Margaret. Jeremiah, who suffered from heart disease, had reportedly died at an Exchange Street shop 13 years earlier.

To acquire the hotel, the Elliott family entered a sort of bidding war with John Osburn and Marshall Leathers, owners of both Gearhart Hotel and Hotel Astoria.

Osburn and Leathers, dissatisfied with the outcome of the bidding, raised concern over the Elliott family not paying the hotel’s back taxes on time — perhaps a last-ditch effort for the pair to acquire the property.

Nevertheless, the hotel remained in the hands of the Elliott family. A short time after the sale, Margaret suffered from multiple strokes, leaving her bedridden for seven years before her death in 1950.

For the next five decades, the Elliott and Short families called Hotel Elliott home. Family members slept in bedrooms on the top floor while living and cooking in the basement.

In that time, Both John and Short worked long days. The 1940 census shows Short clocking in at 99 hours a week.

Yet somehow, in his spare time, Short was president of the Kiwanis and Astoria Chamber of Commerce. For multiple terms, he sat on the Astoria School Board. Elliott, who had served in the U.S. Army during World War I, was a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion. In between these activities, he helped raise a daughter, Margaret Nadine, in the hotel with his wife, Ruby.

Hotel Elliott was also home to several Columbia River Bar Pilots.

 “The river pilots used to stay there because it was centrally located downtown where the restaurants were and only two and a half blocks to the pilots’ office. The bar pilots had their homes in Astoria, but the river pilots usually lived in Portland. They needed a place here in town to spend the night waiting for the next ship to pilot to Portland,” Liisa Penner, archivist at the Clatsop County Historical Society, said.

In 1969, Short died from a heart attack. More than 1,000 condolence calls and notes flooded the hotel. His wife, Flora, suffered multiple heart attacks, one which, too, took her life the following year. John retired from the hotel at the age of 81 in 1973.

Ownership of Hotel Elliott has changed hands since then. As part of a larger vision of revitalizing downtown Astoria, the hotel underwent renovations in the 2000s. The project reflected the hotel’s original intent of luxury, but it hasn’t lost its roots.

Above a fireplace sits a 1920s photo of Jeremiah and Margaret by the original lobby desk. It’s still used today, ready to check visitors into the historic Hotel Elliott.