Lenz Hotel

From the 1920 Sterling Directory

 

Later known as the Schumacher Hotel in its last days of decline in the late 1970s, this shows the hotel one year before proprietor Herman Rollfink sold his interests to Reinhold Gothke. 

As detailed previously, the Hotel Lenz pictured had many incarnations. Starting business as the Wisconsin House in 1871 by John Lenz, Jr., this facility at the corner of Third and Racine Streets had a beer garden in the spring and summer and catered to a German clientele. On the streetcar line and close to the Soo Line depot, this lodging enjoyed transportation access others did not. You can see the streetcar tracks that came up Third Street and turned down Racine Street on the way to downtown. When the building was finally demolished in 1978 it was known as the Schumacher Hotel.