of
Muscatine County Iowa
1911
| History of Muscatine County Iowa 1911 | |
Source: History of Muscatine County Iowa, Volume I, 1911, pages 298-299
IOWA HOUSE, AFTERWARD PENNSYLVANIA HOUSE. From an article written by Suel Foster and published in the Weekly Tribune in 1874, we learn that "Robert Kinney was the first landlord, who put up a sign and kept tavern in Muscatine. He was a native of St. Clair county, Illinois, in the great American bottom opposite St. Louis, where they raised the biggest, fattest, laziest, drollest, oddest, good-for-nothings--one of the very best men we ever had here. He kept travelers, boarders and a hospital. This hotel was 16X30 feet, one and a half stories, divided into three rooms below and three above, the first frame building in the city. It was built in the fall of 1836 on the northwest corner of Chestnut and Water streets. The first ten years of its history would make a most wonderful volume, with Mr. Kinney for its hero." Mr. Kinney died in Salem, Oregon, March 2, 1875.
Subsequently the landlord was William Fry. Under his management it served as the first theater in Muscatine, the dining room being occasionally turned into an amusement hall. The hotel was at one time known as the "Black Horse" from the wooden sign of a horse fastened to a post on the corner. John G. Stein was for some time its popular landlord. He conducted affairs there until his death in 1872, when the name was changed by the new landlord, G. Bitzer, to the Pennsylvania House. In the spring of 1880 this old hostelry was torn down to give way to a more modern structure.
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