Holtzman Hotel
Postcard showing the Holtzman Hotel in 1912.
This photograph showing the Holtzman Hotel was taken from a 1912 postcard. It would have been used to advertise the business and the town’s attraction to visitors.
During the 19th and 20th century visitors flocked to the town and numerous hotels existed to accommodate them. These individuals came to do official business or because they were traveling through the area on the Valley Turnpike which at the time was the area’s major highway.
The Holtzman Hotel dates to the mid-19th century when Frederick Sheffer operated the National Hotel on this site. Though the exact date when the building pictured here was built, it was most likely during the period. In 1883 W.L. Laughlin bought the property and changed the name to the Virginia Hotel and later to the Shenandoah house. J.W. Holtzman bought the business in 1900 and operated it as the Holtzman Hotel until the 1920s.
Sometime during that decade the Dalke family purchased the site, closed the hotel, and opened the Uptown Theatre here. A barber shop and restaurant occupied the street space, apartments filled the second floor, and the theatre was in the back. A fire destroyed the building in 1949. Today the site is home to the Shenandoah County Circuit Court Building which was constructed in 1974.