The Davis Hotel

The old Davis Hotel, a long, narrow building on the corner of Washington and Gilbert streets in downtown Iowa City, seems unremarkable. It houses the Full Kit skate shop, offices and apartments. It acquired the name Davis Hotel in the 1950s after one of its proprietors, George Davis, but its original purpose was not as a hotel at all. It was a factory for pharmaceuticals, toiletries, perfumes and vanilla extract.

The Boerner-Fry Co. was started in 1897 by Emil Louis Boerner, dean of the University of Iowa's pharmacy school, and Johnson County Savings Bank cashier William A. Fry, along with a "number of energetic businessmen with abundant capital," according to an 1899 Gazette story. It was a successful business that produced "goods that the trade appreciates and repeatedly calls for."

The company's success led to the hiring of contractor Jacob J. Hotz to build the multistory, neoclassical factory at 322 E. Washington St. in ¿August 1899. In 1906, the company was incorporated.

Emil Boerner was the son of Prussian immigrant and druggist Henry W. Boerner. The Boerners emigrated to the United States in 1858, when Emil was just 3. Emil's graduating thesis from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy in 1876 was on the commercial production of castor oil. He devised a method of oil extraction that earned millions for manufacturers, but only a degree for Emil.

Emil opened a pharmacy in Iowa City shortly after graduating and moved it to 113 E. Washington St. in 1883. There it remained until 1946, when Emil's son, Frederick, moved it to 15 S. Clinton St. and added a soda fountain. Its most recent address was 1004 Melrose Ave. in University Heights.

Emil Boerner is credited with starting the pharmacy department at the University of Iowa. He and the president of the state pharmaceutical association urged university officials to begin a pharmacy program in 1880. He became the school's first dean when classes started in 1885. He also was the sole faculty member, teaching 13 students -- 12 men and one woman.

Boerner served as Pharmacy School dean until 1903. A Gazette article on Aug. 5 announced that professor Boerner had tendered his resignation to the Board of Regents and planned to devote his time to his business interests.

Those business interests included inventing. He filed for a patent on a device for cooling and dispensing beverages in August 1908. The patent was approved in 1910 for a device "comprising an outer receptacle whose wall is provided with a filling of non-conducting material, a base having a concentric groove in which said receptacle rests, and a conical pipe seat or support, an inner concentrically arranged semi-cylindrical receptacle of slightly less diameter than the interior of the outer receptacle, a conical volute coil of pipe communicating with the bottom of the inner receptacle and the pipe support," according to the patent application.

Representatives from the Boerner-Fry Co. traveled the country either purchasing pure vanilla beans from growers or selling finished products to clients. The factory itself housed huge tanks that held more than 250 gallons of vanilla and stored tiers of barrels with thousands of gallons more to supply to the company's growing list of customers.

It had a fully equipped chemical laboratory for producing its line of toiletries that included products imported from Ceylon, France and other places in Europe.

The Boerner-Fry Co. was sued in 1912 when a Council Bluffs company claimed that the vanilla it purchased gave its ice cream a "soapy taste." To prove the company's case, the plaintiff wanted to feed the ice cream with a "soapy taste" to the jurors. The judge refused to allow it.

The business waned after William Fry died of pneumonia April 8, 1916.

The Boerner-Fry factory was purchased by Iowa City businessman Hayes Carson in 1922, who converted it into the 46-room Washington Hotel, which later became the Davis Hotel.

Emil Boerner died May 28, 1933.

The factory-turned-hotel was remodeled in 1972 into offices and apartments.

In 1974, Lin's Oriental Food Bazaar moved into the ground floor of the hotel.

The Davis Hotel was home to the Planning and Program Development department of Iowa City in the 1970s and '80s. The City Council was divided in 1982 about moving the department out of the hotel. The director of the division, Don Schmeiser, said that working conditions in the old building at Washington and Gilbert streets could be unbearable because the heating system often failed. It had done so three times that winter, with temperatures inside dipping as low as 45 degrees. Indecision from the council forced the city to renew its lease on the hotel space for $1,775 a month. As soon as that lease expired, the department moved to the third floor of the Senior Center.

Because of its age and its unique uses, the Boerner-Fry Co./Davis Hotel was added to the National Register of Historic Places on Jan. 27, 1983.

In 2001, Iowa City's newest downtown business was the Full Kit, a skateboard shop. It was opened by then-25-year-old Mitch Dettman in the storefront of the Davis Hotel, which still houses apartments and offices.

Comments: (319) 398-8338; diane.langton@sourcemedia.net