Obituaries: Statler, Ellsworth Milton

E. M. Statler, Hotel Chain Founder, Dies

Notable Career of Pioneer Ended by Pneumonia at 64 in Pennsylvania Suite

Began Work as Bell Boy

Was First to Provide Baths, Ice Water in All Rooms

Ellsworth Milton Statler, president of the Hotel Statler Company, Inc., died in his apartment at the Hotel Pennsylvania at 6:05 o'clock yesterday morning. He had been ill two weeks with influenza which developed into double pneumonia. During his sixty-four years he rose from poverty to the head of a $25,000,000-a-year business.

With him when he died were his second wife, Alice S. Statler, whom he married a year ago, and a son, Milton H. Statler. A daughter, Elva; another son, Ellsworth M.; a sister, Mrs. Lillian V. Wincher, and three brothers, Charles D., William J., and Osceola A. Statler, of Buffalo, also survive.

Funeral services will be conducted privately in the family apartment at the Hotel Pennsylvania on Wednesday afternoon, probably 2 o'clock. Burial will follow in Kensico Cemetery.

Mr. Statler, who had leading hotels in Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, St. Louis, New York and Boston, put into operation ideas of hotel management which have been adopted throughout the country. He was the first hotel man to provide a bath and running ice water with every room.

Mr. Statler was born in Somerset County, Pa., on October 26, 1863, the son of William Jackson Statler and Mary McKinney Statler. His father was a farmer and an elder in the German Reformed Church

The family was in poor circumstances and at the age of nine the boy was put to work as a stoker in the "glory hole" of a glass factory in Wheeling, W. Va., at 50 cents a day.

Expressions of regret were voiced by prominent hotel men of the city at the news of Mr. Statler's death. Some of their comments follow:

John McE. Bowman, president of the Bowman Biltmore Hotels Corporation: "I am deeply grieved. I had known Mr. Statler for many years and had always held him in the highest regard both as a remarkable executive and as a friend. His death is a great loss to the hotel business."

Lucius M. Boomer, president of the Boomer-du Pont Properties Corporation and Waldorf-Astoria, Inc.: "Ellsworth M. Statler was to me the outstanding figure in the hotel world because of his knowledge of the business and his activity in improving the standards of large, medium priced hotels."

W. W. Downey, acting manager of the Hotels McAlpin and Martinique: "The hotel industry has lost one of its most able men. He was a noble and outstanding character."

Fred Sterry, president of the Plaza Hotel Company: "The hotel business has suffered a great loss in Mr. Statler's death."

Other tributes were paid by Frederick W. Rockwell, first vice-president of the United Hotels Company of America, and Edward Clinton Fogg, managing director of the Roosevelt.

Printed in the Herald Tribune newspaper, Tuesday, April 17, 1928.
Obituary submitted by Bruce Gannon.