Famous guests, infamous events make up a colorful history of the D.M. hotel.
By Jim Pollock
Register Staff Writer
It should be a great party Aug.31, when 500 guests celebrate the Hotel Fort Des Moines' 75th anniversary. But just imagine what a blowout it would be if you could travel through time and round up some of the notable people who have stayed at the Fort since its grand opening in 1919.
Picture Red Skelton, Edgar Bergan, Phil Silvers, Fannie Brice and George Jessel in the center of things, hamming it up. Jack Benny keeps wandering off to hang out with fellow violinists, Jascha Heifetz and Isaac Stern.
Duke Ellington presides at the piano, with Benny Goodman and Louis Armstrong completing the trio. Across the room, Joe Louis, Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney brag, compare biceps and throw a few light combinations.
Mae West, Tallulah Bankhead and Liz Taylor strike poses. Cecil B. DeMille tells them what they're doing wrong.
And off in a corner, speaking earnestly of great things, sit 11 former presidents. Calvin Coolidge isn't saying much, but Lyndon Johnson is. Woodrow Wilson pontificates, John Kennedy turns on the charm and Richard Nixon works on a scheme to book the presidential suite before anybody else can get it.
Walnut and Marble
It's remarkable, all of the American history that has walked through the lobby. But then, they were aiming high when they built the place.
It cost $1.3 million to construct back in 1919, and according to general manager Paul Rottenberg, "It was built as a 'super' hotel. Every room had its own bath; there was circulating ice water to every room; and the water passed through ultraviolet light to be purified." The Hotel Fort Des Moines started business with 400 rooms, opening shortly before the Hotel Savery opened in its current location. The lobby was two stores high, with a marble fountain to go with its marble floor, all set off with walnut woodwork.
Eventually they put a ballroom over the lobby, reducing it to one story. The fountain is gone. But the marble floor has reappeared after at least four decades under carpeting.
Not everybody who walked across that floor was a luminary, of course. Some of them fell more into the shady category.
Log Cabin Raid
In March of 1939, the police liquor squad burst into the Log Cabin room on the 11th floor and arrested 128 men and four young women. They seized 10 bottles of liquor and an assortment of gambling equipment. The tip came from the wives of some of the men attending party. Hotel records showed that the room had been rented for a "benefit bridge" by one Giuseppe Verdi.
As a story in The Register noted: "One question involved is whether the management knew whether Giuseppe Verdi, Italian composer of the operas Rigoletto, Aida, Il Trovatore, and La Traviata, died in 1901, and whether, were he alive, he would sponsor a benefit bridge at the hotel."
In December of 1951, police raided a room and confiscated six cases of whiskey. The room was part of a suite rented to the Iowa Sheriffs' Association, which was holding a joint state convention at the hotel with the Iowa County Attorneys Association.
Famous Guests
Still, it's the big names that stick with you: From William Jennings Bryan to Lawrence Welk, from Charles Lindbergh to Gypsy Rose Lee, the Fort has signed in scores of people who also left their names in the history books. At least one big star did more than partake of the hotel's amenities. Two hundred guests were forced to evacuate the building when a fire broke out one morning in March 1951. As a firefighter carried a panicky teenage girl who had been trapped in an elevator, he called to a bystander, "Hey, pal, how about giving me ahand with this girl?"
The bystander was Henry Fonda, in town to appear in "Mr. Roberts." He worked with the rescuers for half an hour, according to The Register, and was "very cooperative and helped quite a bit," according to the firefighter.
The 10th and Walnut address hit its peak in international attention when Nikita Khrushchev checked in. Khrushchev was premier of the Soviet Union when he came to inspect the state of Iowa agriculture in 1959. Rifle carrying officers stood on roof tops, authorities peeked under man hole covers and the Russian delegation reportedly called the Des Moines security efforts the best they had seen on their American visit.
Still, four 16-year-old Des Moines girls got as far as Khrushchev's floor before somebody stopped them.
A lot of national attention clicked on when Vice President Spiro Agnew made a November 1969 speech in the Grand Ballroom of the Fort Des Moines, attacking the television networks' news coverage.
A few student protesters allowed into the lobby sang "Give Peace a Chance" as Agnew ended his speech upstairs.
When the state Republican powers came down, "Lt. Gov. Roger Jepsen, state Treasurer Maurice Baringer and state Senator John Walsh (Rep., Dubuque) started a counter-demonstration by singing 'God Bless America,'" according to The Des Moines Tribune. "The demonstrators joined in the singing."
Which goes to show that almost anything can happen in 75 years.
