The Hotel Livingston
136 Second Avenue – Built in 1907
The Hotel Livingston was built by George Livingston and hotel guests could conveniently walk from the Niwot Depot to the hotel.
George Livingston hired Jim Hood to construct the hotel in 1907. Receipts from construction that have been located include: a bill for $119.00 to built the expansive front porch, $4.20 for foundation bricks, and some insurance papers indicate that the hotel was valued at $1,000.00 George lived in Niwot only a few years after he completed building the hotel.
Most of the hotel guests in the early years were single men who were working on the railroad, at the flour mill, at the alfalfa mill, or in the Inland Oil Field west of Niwot. The building had no bathing facilities so boarders could use the bathtub in the back of the pool hall in the Niwot Mercantile next door, on the east, for 25-cents per soaking.
Benjamin Shelley moved his family into the hotel in 1928. His wife, Goldie, established a beauty parlor on the first floor and ladies would come for haircuts. Hattie Walden was a hotel manager for many years and her husband George Walden ran the pool hall next door with a bathtub. The Joseph Kroelick family was the last to occupy the building. When it was demolished in the 1960s it was owned by Mrs. Helen Williams of Niwot.
Through the years, the Hotel Livingston had become rundown and was therefore demolished. An antique auction house was built and established on the site of the hotel, followed by a co-op antique business. In 1997-1998, that structure was extensively remodeled into the Niwot Emporium. Because the Emporium was a newer building it does not have a historic designation plaque, although it is in the Niwot Historic District.
