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Hotel had long history in Fort Dodge

-Submitted image courtesy of the Webster County Historical Society
The cover of an old menu for The Duncombe House, which eventually became the Eilers Hotel, shows what the 1872 building looked long before it was destroyed in a fire on Feb. 3, 1994.

At the time of the fire, the Eilers Hotel was a three-story building shaped roughly like a U.

The main entrance was at the base of the U, which faced east toward the City Square. Two wings extended west, with a courtyard between them.

The oldest portion of the building was constructed in 1859. That structure housed bankers and a print shop.

That building was purchased by state Sen. John Duncombe, who expanded it in 1872 and opened it as a hotel called the Duncombe House. The original 1859 portion of the building became the hotel’s restaurant, called the Landmark Grill.

The property remained in the Duncombe family until 1913, when L.D. Eilers bought it and renamed it.

No trace of the hotel remains today, and the ground it sat on was reshaped in 2000 when the new Fort Dodge Public Library was built.

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