Randsburg Winter 1896
Extremely Rare Randsburg Winter Image 1896.
In November of 1896 Mr. Genshlen of Los Angeles in partnership with E. Hannah of Lancaster, purchased the Randsburg Boarding House, it is unknown who they purchased it from. By December of that same year they had changed the name to the Hollenbeck Hotel. The Hollenbeck Hotel appears in this photo as a large tent at the lower end of Rand Street with the name painted on the roof of the tent. Also pictured in this photo is the St. Elmo Saloon owned by John Crawford. John M. Crawford was a Deputy Sheriff from Bakersfield. Along with some other Deputies and lawmen from Bakersfield, he came to the new strike to do some prospecting. A group of them, Sheriff Borgwart, Elmo Pyle, and Cy Drouillard, with John included, made a pretty good strike that they called the St. Elmo. John obviously invested some of his newfound riches in developing property. He built a hotel and a saloon, which was licensed on April 10, 1896. He found that the hotel business was not for him and he disposed of that property to Henderson and Roach. The St. Elmo Saloon was the headquarters for the men from Bakersfield and surrounding area. One newspaper report told of a half-ante-stud poker game that had gone on for several nights with high stakes. At one time there was $500 dollars in the pot (equivalent to $37,500 in today's money). All of the players were from the San Joaquin Valley. The St. Elmo burnt to the ground in the May 1898 fire. It appears that Mr. Crawford did not rebuild it as sometimes prior to December of 1898 he either loaned or sold the cash register from his business in Randsburg to J. C. Mefford of the Arlington Hotel in Bakersfield.
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