Among the many hotels that once served downtown Pekin’s visitors and residents was a grand edifice known as Woodard’s Hotel, which stood on the south side of Elizabeth Street near the former Tazewell County Courthouse.
This structure stood for only two decades. It was built in 1879 by Mrs. E. Barber, who opened it as The White House hotel. The May 1885 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Pekin shows that her hotel was still known as The White House at that time. However, within two years the hotel had been acquired by Norris Woodard, as shown in the 1887 City Directory of Pekin. Woodard, of course, changed the name of the hotel, naming it after himself.
Woodard himself is rather a mysterious figure in Pekin’s history, disappearing from Pekin’s records after the 1887 directory. His hotel apparently had closed by 1893, as indicated by the fact that it does not appear at all, under any name, in the 1893 Pekin city directory. Woodard’s had reopened by 1895, though, under the co-proprietorship of Daniel M. Gillen and Mrs. M. H. Parce, as shown in the 1895 city directory. Gillen and Parce are about as mysterious as Woodard, like him disappearing from Pekin’s records after the 1895 directory. The 1898 Pekin city directory shows that John J. St. Cerny (1852-1942) was the next proprietor of Woodard’s Hotel. Born in Canada, St. Cerny came to the U.S. in 1870 and settled in Pekin in 1897, acquiring the lease to Woodard’s at that time from the owner Otto Koch.
St. Cerny’s hotel investment went up on flame in the early morning hours of Saturday, 8 Oct. 1899, as was reported in the following day’s Bloomington Pantagraph (the article being transcribed and published in the Feb. 2025 issue of the Tazewell County Genealogical & Historical Society’s Monthly). Here is the Pantagraph article in full:
A PEKIN HOTEL BURNED
Guests Had Narrow Escapes with Their Lives Saturday Morning
Pekin, Oct. 8 — (Special.) — At 2:45 Saturday morning some of the inmates of the Woodard house were awakened by the smell of smoke upstairs, that rapidly grew more dense. The cry of fire was sounded and boarders and others in the hotel were awakened and notified to escape at once.
The fire spread rapidly from the south part of the hotel, in the vicinity of the kitchen, and scattered in all directions. An alarm of fire was sent in from box 21 at the city hall, and the firemen, in charge of Chief Jaeckel, responded quickly. So rapidly did the fire burn before the alarm was sent in that the flames were bursting through the roof of the third story when the firemen arrived. Five streams of water were soon playing on the furiously burning structure, two in front and three in the rear, and the firemen looked well after the protection of adjoining property, the Marshall block on the west, The Nolte laundry and Snapp’s barber shop on the east and Zinger’s barn on the south. The fire was confined to the hotel, which is entirely destroyed, only the north front wall standing, and that is badly cracked. The fire was a very hot one, and it roared loudly after it broke through the roof.
In the Woodard house, which was owned by Otto Koch and leased by John St. Cerney, were nearly sixty boarders, besides the help. It was with difficulty that some made their escape from the fast burning building. Some of the women ran out with only their night clothes on. Charles Fossbender and wife were in the second story. He picked up a mattress, threw it out of the window to the ground, and they both jumped, neither being hurt. One of the girls jumped out of the second story window in her fright and escaped injury. Government Gauger T. S. Donahoe was cut off from escape by the dense smoke and came down on the fire escape with only an old suit of clothes on his back. Many of the boarders did not have time to take any of their effects from their room, and were only too glad to escape themselves.
Very few things were saved from the hotel, so furiously did it burn. John St. Cerney lost nearly all of his furniture and household effects. State Representative Jesse Black, like some of the girls, did not even save his necktie. A. C. Wadworth lost all his effects. It was a good thing his wife was at Jacksonville visiting her daughter, Mrs. Judge Richard Yates. W. P. Marity and Adam Heilman did not wait to say their prayers, but hurried out, leaving their clothing and other effects behind them.
The barber shop of Frank Snapp was damaged by water. It is believed the hotel caught fire from the kitchen.The hotel was built in 1879. Its burning at this time, just before the street fair, makes it bad for St. Cerney, who runs the place.
The loss on building and furniture is $25,000, upon which there is an insurance of $21,000.
After the loss of Woodard’s Hotel, St. Cerny formed the Tazewell Hotel Company and built the Tazewell Hotel on the site of Woodard’s. The Tazewell Hotel stood until 1962, when it was demolished by Herget National Bank to make a parking lot for the bank.
