Ellison’s planned a three story department store
with another two floors of office space on top. The first three floors were
built but not floor 4 and 5 as George Vaulker started building his office
building on the northwest corner of 1st Street and 1st
Avenue Southeast. Thinking there would
be a surplus of office space, the Ellison Building remained at only three
floors. The restaurant in the Ellison Building was 0n the second floor. The
Vaulker office building was never
completed. The bottom two floors were all that was finished. The top floors
were open with just the supports showing. The building was referred to as “The
Sparrow Hotel” for many years as the birds were the only tenants. Twenty years
later Clarence Parker bought the unfinished building and converted it to the
Clarence Parker Hotel. In 1953 President Eisenhower stayed in Minot while visiting the Garrison
Dam. While in town, he rented a suite rooms at the Clarence Parker Hotel.
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| Clarence Parker Hotel |
We stayed in either the Leland or more likely the Clarence Parker Hotel the last night out on the St. Olaf Choir's West Coast tour in February 1965. That night the wind was fierce. We could hear the ceiling rattling while singing the concert in the Minot Auditorium. The next morning I went down to get a paper and learned the wind had blown part of a freight train through town at 70 mph in the middle of the night. I think they found what was left of the cars near Velva.
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