HARLOWTON - A community is left devastated after a fire destroyed the historic Graves Hotel in Harlowton early Sunday morning.
Mayor of Harlowton Paul Otten said he was "astonished" when he discovered at 5:00 a.m. what was on fire.
"Oh, my god. The Graves is on fire," he said. “People travel through here just to look at the Graves. You know, it’s a destination spot… This is a great loss for the city of Harlowton.”
Otten said the nearly 115-year-old building had been renovated in the last year. Now, barely any of the building remains standing.
“I don’t know how; well, we’re never going to recuperate from it. I mean, it’s gone. That’s all there is to it,” Otten said.
Otten was thankful for the multiple fire departments that arrived to help put the flames out. Jack Thompson with the Wheatland County Fire Department said he was one of the first to arrive at the fire.
“We made it maybe ten feet in before we had to use the hose to guide our way out because it was too enveloped in smoke, and we couldn’t make it,” Thompson said.
Janine Fredin, 69, found out about the fire about an hour after it had started.
“Six o’clock was when I first heard about it. My nephew came banging at the door and told us there’s a fire at the Graves. So, we went out and stood in the street and saw the whole thing clearly,” Fredin said.
The lifelong Harlowton resident sat and watched as the historic building burned to the ground.
“It’s just a sad, sad, devastating thing to this small town. It’s iconic, it’s beautiful and it’s devastating.”
This Facebook page provides this history of the building:
A. C. Graves, a leading figure in Harlowton's early development, had the hotel built in 1909; it was one of the first businesses to be built after a fire destroyed much of downtown Harlowton in 1907. The hotel was the first sandstone building in Harlowton, though the stone eventually became a common building material; its design features a projecting corner oriel window topped by a metal cupola. In addition to hosting visitors and railroad travelers, the hotel also served as a community meeting place and business center. The hotel was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 6, 1980.
