Nicholl Hotel

Mr. Nels Anderson formed a partnership with Mr. John Walker “Jack” Patterson and Mr. C.W.D. (Charles William Digby) Clifford and in 1912, they built the Nicholl Hotel. Prior to this Mr. Clifford had owned a hotel in Kitselas and Mr. Patterson had run Mr. Clifford’s general store in Kitselas. “With the completion of the railway, the riverboat transportation, which was the lifeblood of Kitselas, came to a close. As the Indians had moved to Port Essington, Port Simpson and Metlakatla, so the whites moved to other settlements. The newspaper moved to Hazelton, the storekeepers to Pacific and Hazelton and the miners to Usk” (Bennett 144). The Nicholl Hotel was quite a busy and popular place back in those days. It cost $2.50 a night to stay there. Ruth McCubbin tells the following story of the hotel – “Before Nels moved from the hotel he had acquired a pool table in a rather unusual way. He had gone to Terrace (approximately 100 miles to the west) and while there, a Mr. Sparks was selling poolroom equipment to provide more space for his drugstore. He tried to talk Nels into buying one of the tables but Nels said he had no place for it and did not want it. However a week or so later the station agent informed Nels that there was a pool table at the station for him and would he please come and get it and pay the freight. Nels was all for sending it back but some of the local prospectors and railway men twisted his arm and he set it up in the lobby of the hotel. After having it for a few weeks he got a bill for fifty dollars from Mr. Sparks which he paid. This table was well used and is probably still in Pacific” (McCubbin 3). Pieces of the slate pool table were found in the late 1970s in the hotel. It had been smashed to bits, but the remains were used by the local residents for gardens and pathways (Barnes).