The Tiger Hotel, located in Burke, Idaho, seven miles from Wallace, was a three story frame hotel with 150 rooms. It was built over the South Fork of the Coeur d’Alene River, and the Northern Pacific Railroad tracks ran through the lobby. The hotel’s only purpose was to provide food and lodging for the miners of the area, and although it was owned and operated by private individuals, it was under common management with the three large mining companies in the area. An occasional transient was accommodated if there was a spare room, and many local families would eat there, finding the food both good and inexpensive.

The original Tiger Hotel, named after the Tiger-Poorman mine, was built in the fall of 1896, and extended virtually from one wall of the narrow canyon to the other. It was damaged by a grease fire in the kitchen in 1897. The fire of 1923 which destroyed the town of Burke also destroyed the hotel, but it was soon rebuilt and enlarged. The 1927 Sanborn map of Burke shows the hotel divided into two distinct buildings; the new building contained the dining room, kitchen, and bakeshop, while in the old, the three floors above the ground floor contained 14 single and 18 double rooms.

In 1942, in spite of adverse wartime conditions, the owners of the Tiger Hotel made every effort to maintain a high standard of boarding and lodging conditions.

On April 1944, the Sullivan Mining Company took over the management of the hotel. Before its destruction in April 1944, the hotel had become an apartment building housing many children who thought it was great fun having a train running through their house. The hotel was eventually sold to Ed Woods of Osburn who had it torn down since it was being vandalized and because it posed a fire hazard to nearby homes.

Sources

Barnard-Stockbridge Photograph Collection PG 8-b385, September 1949