{"nrhp_refnum":"12000802","name":"Franklin Hotel","other_names":["Hotel Kent, Hotel Kent-Ellis"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"176 E. Main St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Kent","county":"Portage County","state":"OH","lat":41.153597425000044,"lon":-81.35667184299996,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2013-01-18","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Social History","Community Planning and Development"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A five-story reinforced concrete and brick hotel at 176 East Main Street in downtown Kent, Portage County, Ohio, at the corner of East Main and Depeyster streets. Completed in 1920 and designed by H.L. Stevens & Company in the Neo-Classical Revival style.","why_significant":"The hotel is nominated under Criterion A for Community Planning and Development and for Social History. Kent businessmen and a Board of Trade formed the Kent Hotel Company to build a modern hotel for the growing town on the Cleveland-Pittsburgh highway. It was the town's only hotel until 1956 and served as a hub of community and social life.","narrative":"Standing at the crest of a hill on East Main Street in downtown Kent, Ohio, this five-story hotel was built in 1920 of reinforced concrete faced with textured red brick and stone trim. H.L. Stevens & Company, a Chicago and New York firm specializing in hotels, designed it in the Neo-Classical Revival style, with arched openings, marble keystones, rosette details and a pressed metal cornice. The Kent Hotel Company, organized through the local Board of Trade and backed by more than 200 citizens, raised the capital after businessmen saw the need for a modern hotel on the busy route between Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Costing about $250,000, it offered 50 rooms, a dining room, coffee shop and assembly room, and it remained the town's only hotel until 1956. Its period of significance runs from 1920 to 1962. Today the building is vacant and the interior is badly deteriorated, but the exterior still shows its original classical character.","period_of_significance":"1920-1962","architect_builder":"Stevens, H. L. & Co.","architectural_style":"Late 19th & 20th Century Revivals/Neo-Classical Revival","criteria":["A"],"status_note":"Currently vacant; the interior has been largely gutted and stripped of finishes, and the windows have been removed, stored and the openings boarded up, though the exterior retains its Neo-Classical detailing.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:52:07.687913-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_OH/12000802.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/12000802/b6e1f2242c-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/12000802/b6e1f2242c-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"JonRidinger","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Acorn_Corner_1.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">JonRidinger</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Acorn_Corner_1.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71991027","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Hotel_(Kent,_Ohio)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q15218401"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/ohio/portage-county/franklin-hotel-12000802/"}