Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 216: Hotel History: Ellsworth M. Statler

Stanley Turkel | July 9, 2019

By Stanley Turkel, CMHS Hotel History: Ellsworth M. Statler In 1950, the hotel industry named Ellsworth Milton Statler “Hotel Man of the Half Century”, even though he had been dead for 22 years. Statler’s impact on inn-keeping was so great, no one else even came close. While many considered Statler the premier hotel figure, he was not a typical executive. A plain, rugged man who started to work at the age of nine, he continued to wear twenty dollar suits and four dollar shoes even after he became successful, and resembled Will Rogers more than Rudolph Valentino. When Statler began in the hotel business, the following practic...