Hotel Pioneer. At the age of 13, he

Hotel Pioneer. At the age of 13, he obtained a job as belle boy at the McLure House Hotel, Virginia, starting a life long interest in the hotel business. With experience, he worked his way up applying methods to develop ideas to improve hotel service, efficiency and business. Through the McLure House, he turned an unprofitable establishment into a profitable high-class business. In 1894, he opened Statler's Restaurant in the new Ellicott Square Building in Buffalo, New York and a massive hotel for Buffalo's Pan-American Exposition in 1901. With the success of the Buffalo Statler, he gained a reputation with businessmen and lenders as hardworking and reliable. He went on to open another Buffalo Sattler in 1907, plus others to include Cleveland 1912, Detroit 1915, St. Louis 1917, New York 1919, and Boston 1927. After his death, the hotel company he founded established the Pittsburgh Hotel William Penn 1938, Washington D.C. 1943, Los Angeles 1952, Dallas 1955 and Hartford 1956. His widow Alice sold out his company's interest to Conrad Hilton for $111 million dollars in 1954. His ethics for the hotel industry business and service are company standards world wide to this day. (bio by: John "J-Cat" Griffith)