Moody Hotel

Robert Moody had a long road to Canadian. After school in Manchester he came to Fort Leavenworth in 1857, freighted on the Santa Fe Trail with his brother and managed P. T. Barnum's Dipper Ranch in Colorado from 1871. In 1879 he joined the Pollard brothers' PO Ranch in Hemphill County and, after the 1886 blizzards drove his partner out, became its sole owner. In Canadian he founded the Traders Bank with Henry Hamburg and gave the land for the Baptist Canadian Academy. He died in 1915 while visiting a son.

What the plaque says

In 1910 Canadian was a thriving railroad and marketing center with a Baptist Academy. English-born Robert Moody (1838-1915), a rancher, banker and trustee of the academy, decided to build a hotel that would reflect the town's prosperity. On the site of the former McIntosh Hotel, he began construction of this brick veneered building. The three-story facility opened in late 1910 with 40 guest rooms and a beautiful oak stairway. The Moody Hotel became a local landmark and a popular stop for visitors until changing travel customs caused it to close. (1978)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• River Valley Pioneer Museum — steps away
  The Hemphill County museum in Canadian, a Santa Fe division town of 1887 on the river breaks that held one of the first commercial rodeos in Texas and voted itself dry in 1903.
• The Citadelle Art Museum — 0.3 mi
  A 1910 Baptist church saved from demolition in 1977, made into a family home filled with art, and given to Canadian in 2009 as one of the Panhandle's few art museums.
• Canadian River Wagon Bridge — 1.1 mi
  The longest pin-connected bridge in Texas, 3,255 feet of Parker trusses across the Canadian River at Canadian, built for wagons in 1916 and reopened as a footpath in 2000.
• Gene Howe Wildlife Management Area — 5.3 mi
  Five thousand acres of sand sage and cottonwood bottomland along the Canadian River east of Canadian, bought by the state in 1950 for wildlife research and open to walkers with a permit.

More markers nearby

• John Hemphill — steps away
• R. Dick Bussell — steps away
• First Church Bell — 0.3 mi
• First Baptist Church of Canadian — 0.4 mi