High View Hotel
The High View Hotel had been nestled on a green promontory above Chain Bridge and was a local landmark.
On June 27, 1915, a reporter for the Evening Star went looking for remains of the luxurious High View Hotel above Chain Bridge and found nothing but overgrown vines. Only a few years before, High View Hotel had been nestled on a green promontory above Chain Bridge and was a local landmark. It opened in 1892, but according to local historian Jessica Kaplan it was plagued by unscrupulous developers who tried to cheat each other; crimes including attempted murder that left a man alive but bloody after he had been knifed from head to foot, according to the Washington Post; and proprietors whose personal money problems contributed to their inability to run the hotel without graft. Nevertheless, local newspapers described the elite hotel as a first class establishment situated on the side of the Potomac that enabled guests to look straight down into the Potomac 150 feet below. It provided a view of the unmarred beauty of nature in all directions.
The hotel was described as being composed of "parlors and dining rooms with ten private rooms, all "furnished with electric lights, electric bells and electric fans." Newspapers hailed it as a deluxe gambling resort.” Despite these glowing advertisements, the hotel was mired in trouble. As if sleazy land deals and attempted murder weren’t enough, the High View Hotel was rumored to have been on par with establishments in Rosslyn and Jackson City engaging in prostitution and illegal gambling and drinking.
Eleanor Templeman, who was one of the people who first sought to document the history of Arlington County, believed this was the case, although little evidence exists that it was cleaned up along with its Virginia colleagues just a few miles down the Potomac. The hotel lay empty and unused and eventually came to a fitting end on July 1,1912 when it burned to the ground. Nothing was left for the reporter to find on the hillside three years later except over growth. Read more about the High View Hotel here ion "The Arlington Historical Magazine" : http://arlingtonhistoricalsociety.org/.../2019-3-High...
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