Elmer,

I'm certain the hotel on the corner of First and Front streets must be the old Lea Hotel. It is indicated as a frame building, as it is described in several early accounts. The hotel in the next block north is indicated as brick. A careful reading of the account provided by Gay really helped clear this up for me.

Several other details caught my eye: In 1864 the railroad tracks north of the Lea Hotel ran through a cut, but this had evidently been leveled by 1922, since the Sanborn map shows the tracks running down the center of Front Street. By 1922 it had become a double track through town, while in 1864 it had evidently been a single track.

One thing that puzzles me is that early descriptions of the hotel describe it as having a wide platform running to the railroad tracks. The frame hotel on the Sanborn map seems to be rather far from the tracks. I don't believe the streets shown on the Sanborn map were there in 1864, since the town wasn't platted until about 1870, so it may be possible that the tracks in 1864 stood nearer the building but were moved and relaid before 1922, possible at the time the ground was leveled to remove the need for a railroad cut.

Does that make sense?

Bill