The Marion Hotel, St. Augustine, Florida. Henry Muller, Owner and Proprietor
Jacksonville, Florida: Arnold Printing Company, c1915. First Edition. Stapled wraps.
A VANISHED WATERFRONT HOTEL FROM THE FIRST GREAT AGE OF FLORIDA TOURISM.
An unusually attractive promotional brochure for Henry Muller's Marion Hotel, combining hotel advertising with an illustrated introduction to St. Augustine as a destination for affluent winter travelers.
ST. AUGUSTINE AS A WINTER RESORT.
The narrow color-lithographed wrapper opens to photographs and promotional text presenting golf, historic architecture, the waterfront, the city's artistic community, and the Marion itself. A striking double-page view shows the hotel facing Matanzas Bay, with early automobiles along the seawall.
The brochure captures St. Augustine as it was being marketed to a new generation of Florida visitors: historic and Spanish in atmosphere, but equipped with automobiles, golf courses, modern hotels, electric lighting, private baths, and other conveniences expected by early 20th-century tourists.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS: A COLOR-LITHOGRAPHED FLORIDA HOTEL BROCHURE
+++ Color-lithographed front wrapper printed in red, yellow, blue, and black, with a street scene above a stylized image of the Marion Hotel and automobiles along the waterfront.
+++ Stapled pictorial wrappers. 9.0 × 4.0 inches. 8 pages.
+++ Illustrated with four images from photographs and a large double-page black-and-white view of the Marion Hotel overlooking Matanzas Bay. Decorative orange line drawings and borders appear throughout.
+++ Among the illustrated subjects are the local golf links and the Pallette and Pencil Club at the Old Fatio House. The hotel advertisement describes the Marion as fireproof, with 100 rooms, 60 private baths, steam heat, hot and cold water, electric lights, elevator service, and a dining room under the owner's direction.
+++ Rear wrapper bears the imprint of Arnold Printing Company, Jacksonville, Florida.
CONDITION: Fine. An exceptionally well-preserved example. Wrappers clean and bright with only minor handling and edge wear. Interior clean. Beginning oxidation to the staples, without significant surrounding staining. Colors remain strong and the photographic illustrations are sharp.
Ref: Automobile Blue Book Vol 6. 1919. Advert p70; St Augustine in the Gilded Age p 22
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE: FROM GILDED AGE RESORT TO AUTOMOBILE FLORIDA.
The Marion belonged to the generation of St. Augustine hotels that followed the city's transformation into a major American winter resort. By 1905 the Marion was already operating as one of the city's established hotels, while later tourist literature identifies Henry Muller as proprietor and describes an expanded Marion accommodating 150 guests, open throughout the year and overlooking the bay and ocean.
FLORIDA BECOMES A DESTINATION.
This brochure is especially effective as a record of the changing tourist culture. St. Augustine's older attractions are presented beside golf, automobiles, an artists' club, and the modern amenities of the Marion. The result is not simply a hotel advertisement but a compact picture of the city selling history and modern leisure together.
A VANISHED HOTEL ON MATANZAS BAY.
The illustrated Marion itself is particularly valuable because the hotel no longer survives. Its prominent bayfront presence, shown here with automobiles traveling immediately before it, records a streetscape later altered by redevelopment.
GENRES: Florida Ephemera, Hotel Ephemera, Travel Ephemera, Tourism Brochures, Promotional Literature, Illustrated Brochures, Architectural Ephemera
SUBJECTS: St. Augustine Florida, Marion Hotel, Henry Muller, Florida Hotels, Florida Tourism, Matanzas Bay, St. Augustine Architecture, Gilded Age Florida, Florida East Coast Tourism, Early Automobile Travel, Golf in Florida, Pallette and Pencil Club, Old Fatio House, Jacksonville Printing.
A SCARCE SURVIVAL FROM EARLY FLORIDA TOURISM:
OCLC records only one institutional copy, at the Jacksonville Public Library.
Item #22564
Price: $325.00
Status: On Hold
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