A History Loves Company Original

Before expressways cut through the landscape…
Before the Silverdome roared…
Before Pontiac became one of Michigan’s most influential automotive hubs…

Hotels built this city.

Travelers arrived by rail.
Factory workers rented rooms by the week.
Salesmen, performers, church leaders, and families came through downtown Pontiac long before the automotive boom reached its peak.

Some of these hotels still stand in disguise.
Some have been demolished.
Some are hiding behind new facades.
But all of them shaped the Pontiac we walk through today.

This is the story of Pontiac’s historic hotels — the ones we lost, the ones that survive, and the ones built into the very blocks we live and work in today.

Welcome to Pontiac Pulse – Episode 6.

Pontiac’s Hotel Era: A Snapshot in Time

In the early 1900s, Pontiac wasn’t just an industrial city — it was a travel city.

Thousands of people arrived around the clock by:

• Train

• Streetcar

• Interurban line

• Early automobiles

They needed places to stay.
And Pontiac delivered.

Large brick hotels filled the downtown corridor.
Smaller rooming houses lined the side streets.
Private boarding residences housed hundreds of GM workers when the plants surged to life.

Hotels weren’t just buildings — they were economic engines.

The Oakland Hotel — Still Standing… Barely Recognized

Let’s start with the most surprising one:
The Oakland Hotel still exists.
Just not the way people think.

The original Oakland Hotel is now part of the building known as Park Lodge — the very same building connected to the History Loves Company Headquarters inside the historic Riker Building.

Inside the hallways, the clues are unmistakable:

• Wide hotel-style corridors

• Repetitive window placement

• Legacy door frames and brickwork

• A footprint typical of an early 20th-century lodging house

Most people walk past this structure every day with no idea they’re looking at one of Pontiac’s earliest hotels.

But the bones don’t lie.

Hotel Oakland — Downtown’s Lost Giant

Not to be confused with the Oakland Hotel,
Hotel Oakland once stood proudly along Saginaw Street as one of Pontiac’s premier lodging destinations.

For decades, it hosted:

• Business travelers

• Weddings

• Banquets

• Automotive executives

• Visiting families

• Touring entertainers

Its demolition left one of the biggest gaps in Pontiac’s architectural story.
But its memory survives in rare photographs, postcards, and the stories passed down through generations.

The Boarding Houses & Worker Lodging Spots

Pontiac wasn’t just a city of grand hotels.

Hundreds of laborers came to Pontiac for:

• Truck & Bus

• Fisher Body

• GM facilities

• Foundry work

• Railroad jobs

They needed affordable, walkable, central places to sleep.

So dozens of smaller inns, rooming houses, and boarding homes filled the city grid — especially near:

• Saginaw Street

• Huron Street

• The rail lines

• The industrial belt

Most of these structures no longer exist, but their footprints shaped entire blocks.

What Remains Today

Even though many hotels have disappeared, Pontiac’s downtown still holds fragments of its hotel era:

• Hidden facades from former lodgings

• Window patterns matching early 1900s hotel blueprints

• Ghost signs beneath layers of paint

• Old stonework behind newer storefronts

• And, of course, the Oakland Hotel / Park Lodge, still standing

Pontiac’s hotel history is still physically present — you just have to know where to look.

Walk the Hotels With Us

In this Pontiac Pulse episode, we explore:

• The sites where major hotels once stood

• The buildings still hiding hotel architecture

• The Oakland Hotel’s surviving structure

• Rare archival images

• The role hotels played in the city’s growth

• Why Pontiac once needed so many lodging options

• How downtown evolved as the rail and automotive eras shifted

It’s the untold story of Pontiac’s lodging industry — and the legacy it left behind.

🎥 Watch Pontiac Pulse – Episode 6

📺 Full Video Premiere:
https://youtube.com/@historylovescompany

Pontiac has stories worth telling — and we’re here to tell all of them.