Historic Inns & Hotels in Kansas

The regions

Where to stay, by region

Northeast Kansas

The Eldridge Hotel in Lawrence is the only stay we list in this region; we could not verify a historic stay in Topeka, Leavenworth, Atchison or Kansas City, Kansas. It stands at 701 Massachusetts Street, on the corner where the Free State Hotel burned in 1856 and its successor burned in Quantrill’s raid in 1863. The present building, built in phases from 1925 to 1928, is individually listed on the National Register as the Eldridge House Hotel. The hotel lists 48 suites, all of them in that building, though a 1985 project rebuilt its top four floors. The Eldridge Extended, one block south, is a separate property and not the listed building, so book ‘Rooms at The Eldridge’, not Extended.

The Flint Hills

Five of the inns we list are here, the most of any region, running from Council Grove and Alma south through Marion and Elmdale to Beaumont. In Council Grove, the Cottage House Hotel, individually listed on the National Register, began as a three-room cottage of about 1867, enclosed by a brick Italianate house in 1871–72 and enlarged with a Queen Anne addition in 1898. The hotel counts 26 rooms in that main building, and those are the historic ones; its 10 motel rooms and two cottages are not. In Alma, the Brandt House is Joseph and Christena Brandt’s 1887 limestone hotel, listed on the National Register as the Brandt Hotel; it reopened as a boutique hotel in February 2025 and lists six rooms. In Marion, the Historic Elgin Hotel is a three-story stone hotel of 1886, listed on the National Register as the Elgin Hotel. The hotel says all 12 suites are in that building, and the game lounge is in a separate building behind it. In Elmdale, Clover Cliff Ranch Bed & Breakfast centers on Jacob R. Blackshere’s limestone house, completed in 1883 and listed on the National Register. Book the Blackshere, Prather or Donahue room or the Lincoln Honeymoon Suite for the historic house, though the ranch does not say outright that all four are inside it; the Bunk House, Gables House and Cabin are separate buildings of unconfirmed date. The Beaumont Hotel, also on the National Register, was built in 1879 as the Summit Hotel, and its look today is largely a 1953 remodel for fly-in guests; Kansas Magazine counts ten rooms.

Wichita & South Central

Four of the inns we list are here: three in downtown Wichita and one in Abilene. The Drury Plaza Broadview, on the east bank of the Arkansas River, is the eight-story Broadview Hotel of 1922, with a two-bay addition of 1929, individually listed on the National Register; Drury lists 200 rooms. Hotel at Old Town fills the Keen Kutter Building, a hardware warehouse of 1905–06 marked Key Contributing in the nomination for the Wichita Historic Warehouse and Jobbers District, and it has been a hotel since 1999. The Ambassador Hotel Wichita is in the 14-story Union National Bank Building of 1926, also individually listed on the National Register, and Visit Wichita lists 117 rooms. In Abilene, Abilene’s Victorian Inn is Dr. Edward E. Hazlett’s 1887 house, enlarged in 1920–21 and on the Register of Historic Kansas Places as the Hazlett-Hurd House; the inn lists six rooms. We could not verify a historic stay in Hutchinson, Newton, Lindsborg or Salina.

Western Kansas

Three of the inns we list are here. In Wilson, the Midland Railroad Hotel is a three-story limestone hotel of 1899 on the Union Pacific line, gutted by fire in November 1902 and reopened as the Midland; it is listed on the National Register as the Midland Hotel, and the hotel lists 28 rooms. In Oberlin, The Landmark Inn fills the Bank of Oberlin, a two-story red brick Italianate block of about 1886, individually listed on the National Register and an inn since 1996. The inn lists seven rooms; Clio places the restored guest rooms on the second floor of the bank, and we could not confirm whether all seven are there. In Garden City, Sunnyland Bed & Breakfast is a three-story Queen Anne house of red glazed brick with a round tower, built about 1909 as David R. Menke’s retirement home and on the Register of Historic Kansas Places; the inn lists five rooms. We could not verify a historic stay in Dodge City, Hays, Cimarron or Colby.

Southeast Kansas

Courtland Hotel & Spa in Fort Scott is the only stay we list in this region; most of the region’s big hotels are now apartments or have no confirmed current use. It fills the Ohio Block, or Hornaday-Howard Building, a two-story brick block of 1906 that is a contributing building in the Fort Scott Downtown Historic District, with its name and date still on the parapet. The numbered rooms, Room 1 through Room 16 with gaps, are in the 1906 building. The booking engine also lists Wood 1–4, units at a sister property, Corporate Wood Apartments, that are not historic, so book a numbered room.

Before you book

Planning your stay

Before you book

At four inns, the room you choose decides whether you sleep in the historic building. At The Eldridge Hotel, book ‘Rooms at The Eldridge’, not The Eldridge Extended; at the Cottage House Hotel, book a main-building room, not the motel unit or a cottage; at Clover Cliff Ranch, book one of the four B&B rooms; and at the Courtland, book a numbered room, not a Wood unit. Breakfast is included at the Drury Plaza Broadview, Abilene’s Victorian Inn, Clover Cliff Ranch, the Beaumont Hotel, the Midland Railroad Hotel, Sunnyland and the Courtland, and available at Hotel at Old Town, the Historic Elgin Hotel and the Brandt House. We could not confirm it at The Eldridge Hotel, the Ambassador Hotel Wichita, the Cottage House Hotel or The Landmark Inn in Oberlin, so ask when you book. Parking is free on site at the Elgin, paid on site at the Drury Plaza Broadview, in a nearby garage for The Eldridge Hotel and Hotel at Old Town, and on the street at the Brandt House and Sunnyland. The Brandt House has no elevator, and its booking engine says it is meant for ages 12 and up, with exceptions by phone. The Drury Plaza Broadview and the Midland Railroad Hotel take pets; The Eldridge Hotel, Hotel at Old Town, the Elgin, the Brandt House and Sunnyland do not.

Ways in

Themes in Kansas

Lawrence and the Eldridge

Settlers sent by the New England Emigrant Aid Company built the Free State Hotel in Lawrence in 1855. Sheriff Samuel Jones and pro-slavery men burned it on May 21, 1856, during the Sack of Lawrence. Shalor Eldridge’s replacement burned on August 21, 1863, in Quantrill’s raid. Eldridge rebuilt in 1866, and a group organized by Billy Hutson later replaced that hotel with the present building, built in phases from 1925 to 1928, and the National Register nomination says a rear unit appears to date from the 1866 Eldridge House. The hotel closed in 1970 and was apartments until 1985, when investors rebuilt the top four floors into 48 two-room suites. The one ghost story we could source in Kansas belongs here: the Lawrence Journal-World reported in 2009 that guests in Room 506 said their door opened in the night and a set of golf clubs shook the next day. Treat it as a story, not documented fact.

Wichita’s downtown hotels

George Siedhoff developed the eight-story Broadview on the east bank of the Arkansas River, designed by Ed Forsblom and completed in 1922, with a two-bay addition in 1929. Drury says the hotel hosted Franklin D. Roosevelt and that its renovation kept a mosaic mural by Blackbear Bosin. The Morton-Simmons Hardware Company built its wholesale warehouse in 1905–06, and the building took its popular name from the company’s Keen Kutter tools. Hotelier Jack DeBoer, founder of Residence Inn, restored it and opened the Hotel at Old Town in 1999, and its old water tower now houses the elevator shaft. The Union National Bank Building, financed by the Edith Rockefeller McCormick Trust of Chicago, was completed in 1926, and the Dockum Drug Store occupied the north half of its first floor. In July 1958 Black youth in Wichita staged a sit-in at Dockum’s, which the National Register nomination says predated the better-known Greensboro sit-in of February 1960 and led to the desegregation of the chain’s Wichita stores. A $23 million rehabilitation with federal and state historic tax credits turned the vacant tower into the hotel.

Flint Hills stone and ranch country

The Historic Elgin Hotel says Marion citizens formed a hotel company in July 1885 after failing to attract an outside builder, and sold 160 shares at $100 each; the three-story stone hotel was finished by September 1886 at a cost of $25,000. It closed in 1967, a 1974 buyer planned to demolish it and reuse the stone until funding fell through, and Jim and Nancy Cloutier restored it as a bed and breakfast that opened in 2009. In Council Grove, banker Lewis Mead and his first wife, Sarah Marks Mead, bought the Cottage House property in 1879; after Sarah died in 1886, Lewis married her sister Josephine, who enlarged and promoted the hotel and ran it until her death in 1932. In Elmdale, Jacob R. Blackshere came from Virginia in 1860, built a one-room cabin that now forms the back of the Clover Cliff house, and returned with his family in 1867. The ranch credits him with the first successful alfalfa crop in Kansas. Homer Prather and his wife bought the ranch in 1912, built a stone veranda and hosted the poet Vachel Lindsay.

Railroad hotels, from Beaumont to Wilson

The Beaumont Hotel began in 1879 as the Summit Hotel, a stop for stagecoach and railroad travelers. Local ranchers began using Main Street as a landing strip in the 1940s, and in 1953 rancher James Clinton Squier remodeled the hotel for fly-in guests and added 70 acres for a grass airstrip. The Beaumont railroad water tank, also on the National Register, stands nearby. In Alma, Joseph and Christena Brandt built their limestone hotel in anticipation of a boom from the Rock Island Railway, opening it with 17 rooms in December 1887. In Wilson, Wilke Power built a three-story limestone hotel in 1899 on the Union Pacific line between Kansas City and Denver. A fire gutted it in November 1902, and it reopened as the Midland. It appeared in the 1973 film Paper Moon, closed in 1988 and stood vacant for nearly a decade; the Wilson Foundation bought it in 1997 for $35,000, carried out a $3.2 million restoration and reopened it in 2003.

Road trip

Lawrence to Wichita, inn to inn

Lawrence

Start at The Eldridge Hotel at 701 Massachusetts Street, on the corner where the Free State Hotel burned in 1856. Book ‘Rooms at The Eldridge’, not The Eldridge Extended.

Council Grove

Stay at the Cottage House Hotel, which began as a cottage of about 1867, and book a main-building room. In Alma, the Brandt House is an 1887 limestone hotel that reopened in February 2025.

Marion

Stop at the Historic Elgin Hotel, a three-story stone hotel of 1886 where, the hotel says, all 12 suites are in the original building. In Elmdale, Clover Cliff Ranch Bed & Breakfast has four B&B rooms, with breakfast included.

Wichita

End at one of three downtown hotels: the Drury Plaza Broadview of 1922, Hotel at Old Town in a warehouse of 1905–06, or the Ambassador Hotel Wichita in the 1926 Union National Bank Building.

Context

History and architecture

Settlers built the Free State Hotel in Lawrence in 1855, and it burned in the Sack of Lawrence in 1856, during the years known as Bleeding Kansas. Kansas became the 34th state on January 29, 1861, and the hotel’s successor burned in Quantrill’s raid on August 21, 1863. The oldest building we list, the Cottage House in Council Grove, began as a cottage of about 1867. Then came the Summit Hotel in Beaumont in 1879, Clover Cliff’s limestone ranch house in 1883, the Bank of Oberlin about 1886, the Elgin in Marion in 1886, and in 1887 the Brandt in Alma and Dr. Edward E. Hazlett’s house in Abilene. A limestone hotel went up on the Union Pacific line in Wilson in 1899. In the new century Wichita gained a hardware warehouse in 1905–06, Fort Scott the Ohio Block in 1906 and Garden City a Queen Anne house about 1909. Wichita’s Broadview followed in 1922, the present Eldridge in 1925 and Wichita’s Union National Bank Building in 1926. Several of these buildings took in guests much later: Abilene’s Victorian Inn in the early 1990s, The Landmark Inn in Oberlin in 1996 and Hotel at Old Town in 1999.