Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Broadway Likely To Close With Death Of Owner

By JOHN MILLER

A piece of Prescott's history will soon come to an end.

The Broadway Hotel will close unless it is bought. Judy Ammons, one of Chester Hooker's daughters, said the family has discussed what to do with the hotel and decided to close it.

"I don't think we'll open it back up," she said. "We're looking for a buyer."

Part of the reasoning behind closing and trying to sell the Broadway Hotel is because of Hooker's murder at the business Saturday, Sept. 6.

Ammons said the family discussed what to do about the hotel and restaurant and none of Hooker's children wanted to take the business over.

She said someone had talked to her father about buying it several months ago, but he refused to sell. "We would hate to see it turn into a hang out," she said, "and get run down. We'd like to sell it."

Ammons called her father a humanitarian, saying he helped people in any way he could, along with taking in stray animals.

At his farm outside of town, Hooker had about 20 stray dogs, Ammons said, but only went to the farm to make sure the animals were tended.

After his wife died about 18 months ago, Ammons said, he didn't stay overnight at the farm, preferring to stay at the hotel. "He loved it there so much," she said.

In addition to taking in strays, Hooker would keep charge tickets for people, letting them pay their bills at the hotel and restaurant when they could. Ammons said there were times people didn't bother paying what they owed.

This, however, didn't stop Hooker from being generous, as he also loaned people money on occasion.

The Broadway Hotel was also the meeting place for two of Prescott's civic clubs, Rotary and the Kiwanis Club, as they met at noon on Tuesday and Thursday there.

Ironically, Hooker's father was also a murder victim. Ammons said during the Great Depression of the 1930s his father was killed and the man who actually committed the murder went free. Another man, she said, went to prison instead.

This, she said, affected her father greatly.

Hooker also had a problem shortly before Christmas last year as he was mugged.

Ammons said he was afraid of one of the residents at the hotel, but refused to go home at night.

"We pray they catch who did this," she said. "They're (law enforcement agencies) working hard on it."

According to local historian John W. Teeter, the Broadway Hotel was built around 1930 by Blake Scott.

This was after Highway 67, then known as Broadway of America, was paved and Standard Oil Co. put a full service station on the corner .

Teeter said Scott operated the hotel and restaurant until World War II, when he left. Scott was a colonel in the Arkansas National Guard.

When he left employees operated the business for a while, until it was taken over by a family by the name of Hays. From there, it went to Joe Sheehan, who ran the business for years.

Once Sheehan sold out, the Broadway went through a series of hands until Chester and Winnie Hooker bought it several years ago.

Teeter said the Broadway did a booming business, with the restaurant open 24-hours-a-day. He said when Interstate 30 was finished, the business declined drastically.

The hotel, he said, was built on what was once an old boarding house and has always been known as the Broadway.