10/07/2023
Some of our amazing history! We were fortunate this past summer to have previous owners family drop on by.
This beautiful historic Hotel has played host to a legendary games, ghosts, and famous pilots. From Kellogg, Idaho, E. L. Van Gilder purchased the lot for $4,000 from T.W. Hawkins and constructed the Van Gilder office building in 1916. The building changed hands (and uses) frequently in its early years, but in 1921 was sold to Joseph Badger, who began operating it as the Van Gilder Hotel. Over the decades, the Hotel has changed names and uses and even played host to a legendary, ongoing pinochle game that visitors could watch from the front windows. Since as early as 1921, the Hotel has been haunted with sightings including will-o’-wisps and orbs, two men wearing bowler hats standing behind the front desk, and three children running from room to room giggling. However, the most famous ghost is “Fannie,” a guest from room 202 killed by her husband in 1950. The local newspaper published an account of the April 5, 1950 murder of Fannie Baehm by her husband. The Van Gilder is an integral part of the early Seward fabric, documented on their walls. It contains pictures of characters like Seward settler Eva Lowell and her pet porcupine and scenes of the railroad workers who lived and worked close by during World War I. There are even scenes of President Warren G. Harding’s visit, who came to Seward in 1923 to drive the final gold spike in the railroad connecting Seward and Fairbanks. Guest rooms are ornately furnished in period décor. The lobby, lit by antique Victorian fixtures, has a front desk fashioned from an old oak saloon-style bar with a brass footrail. Early guests to the Hotel included salespeople, railroad and government officials, and, in 1923, U.S. President Warren G. Harding’s territorial executives. In 1924, the Van Gilder was a stop for the Army Air Service Team that made the globe’s first aerial circumnavigation. Known as the “Round the World” pilots, when the Army Air Service Team’s floatplanes landed in Resurrection Bay, it was the first time that many of Seward’s 1,000 residents saw an airplane. In addition to being a place to stay, the Van Gilder has housed Masonic and Odd Fellows lodge rooms, the Seward Gateway newspaper, doctor and attorney offices, Christian Scientists, and the Seward Women’s Club. The Van Gilders were active in Seward, but only lived here for a short period. Their daughter Florence was a member of the Athenaeum Literary Society and won a high school debate promoting “Examinations should be abolished” in January of 1916. That sounds like a great idea! The Van Gilder Hotel is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
