The Opening of the Oriental Hotel – A most unusual speech
The Oriental Hotel was a much anticipated, super swanky hotel in (what is now) the West End of Dallas. This magnificent beast was built several blocks away from the action and was given the business side-eye when it was first proposed. However, as construction progressed, anticipation to get inside this exotic specimen grew. Opening day saw the guest speaker, Governor Hogg, delayed on the train lines and the original visionary, Thomas Field, no where to be found.
J.C. Patton, a Dallas attorney, was friends with Thomas Field and shared an office close-by for a few years. Patton gave a bizarre speech about the man behind the vision of the Oriental Hotel and the newspaper printed it in full, claiming it a “happy eulogium”.
When first reading about the Oriental Hotel’s opening day, you would not be mistaken that almost everyone writes about Thomas Field in the past tense, and that he has passed away. However, the case gets much weirder when you read what Patton had to say in his speech: “Custom bestows eulogiums usually on the dead, but why not on the living as well? To me there was always more joy in telling the virtues of the living than in canting and requiems and stories over the dead. I, for one, shall ever think that this most palatial building, a monument to enterprise and energy, should bear on its front, beautifully carved, the name of Thomas Field, its founder, if not the name of the ‘Field House’ or “Hotel’”.
J.C. Patton sprinkles references to the fact that people might not have liked Thomas Field, but to remember him warmly on this day, that he treated his contractors well and donated handsomely to charity. “Now this, the greatest enterprise he undertook and built, the very idol of his heart, I would say, is to be opened on the 9th {October} by those who now have it in control. He is not here. I have not seen him for months and known not now his whereabouts.”
So, where was Thomas Field? Dead and buried? Absconded? Institutionalized? Stay tuned. Or, ya know, hang out with my charming self on a tour and hear all the dirt in one shot.
