| The bright wallpaper on upper hallway walls was found in one of the rooms.
The beds are made up just as they were. The rooms are only slightly more crowded
than they were in days of yore when people actually stayed in them. Each room has a
focus that makes an important part of a whole personality. When I pick up a book or
some other item at Hotel Love I can almost feel that someone once cared about that
particular item and might even be worried about it now. Hotel Love was built with sixty-three rooms in 1895 and opened for business in the spring of 1895. The Purcell Register reported that it was "by far the finest hotel in the Chickasaw Nation --" It had steam heat, electric lights, and rooms were an elegant $2 per night. In 1982 Jerry Butler owned a drugstore on the bottom floor of the hotel, along with several other businesses. The upper two floors were sealed off. When the whole building came up for sale that year Jerry and his wife Elaine bought it. Elaine decided to store a few pieces of glass and other antiques and collectibles in the windows of what used to be known as the Ladies Parlor upstairs. Green and pink depression glass was arranged on glass shelves there. Almost immediately people started coming into the drugstore wanting to know how to get upstairs to the antique shop. Today the drugstore is gone, but the antique shop remains. Period Furniture is displayed on the bottom floor, smaller items are performing upstairs. The antiques run to glass and mirrors and things which would have appeared in homes of the past. Some of the prices are shockingly low for the quality I saw, and other prices are just a little below average. Visa and MasterCard makes purchasing easy. The stairs are steep even with the handrails. Sody Pop can be bought on the honor system downstairs for fifty cents each; they even have Sprite. Staff members take a great deal of pride in everything they do. Hotel Love was placed on the National Register of Historic Places by the United States Department of the Interior on December 7th 1995 If you are supposed to pay admission I missed the opportunity completely. The address is 200 West Main and the phone number is (405) 527 9592 if you want a special tour set up for your group. Hotel Love is just one of many fascinating buildings on Purcell's historic (wide) Main Street. Flowers decorate the street year round and there is a cleanliness here maintained by civic pride. |
Training,
showing, and selling quality horses.
