{"nrhp_refnum":"80004140","name":"Shapira Hotel","other_names":["Wills Hotel"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"209 N. Madison St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Madisonville","county":"Madison County","state":"TX","lat":30.968373076000034,"lon":-95.91571549199995,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1980-09-08","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Commerce","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A 24-room wooden hotel at 209 N. Madison Street, just off the town square in Madisonville, Madison County, Texas, built about 1904 on the site of an earlier Shapira family hotel that burned.","why_significant":"The nomination presents it as an unusual example of a nearly vanished type, the small town hotel, and the only facility of its kind in this rural east Texas region. It served as the social center of the ranching and farming community, second only to the courthouse in local importance. Its vernacular Queen Anne design with turrets, gables and decorative shingling made it one of the most lavish buildings in the region when completed.","narrative":"Built about 1904 just off the town square in Madisonville, this 24-room wooden hotel replaced an earlier Shapira family hotel that had burned. Jake and Sarah Shapira, Russian-Jewish immigrants, ran a mercantile business and a popular boarding house; Sarah rebuilt after Jake's death in 1903. The new hotel drew traveling salesmen, ranchers and later oilmen, and also served as a dining and entertainment center for townspeople. Its design is a provincial reflection of the Queen Anne style, with an H-shaped plan, octagonal and rectangular turrets, a multi-gabled roof, jigsawn trim and bands of fish-scale shingles. Sarah moved to Crockett in 1922, and Clara Wills bought the hotel in 1928 and operated it until 1974. Mid-1930s changes covered the siding and altered the porches, though the work was considered reversible. It was regarded as the only hotel of its kind in the region and a leading social gathering place.","period_of_significance":"1900-","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Provincial or vernacular Queen Anne","criteria":[],"status_note":"Closed as a hotel in 1974 and listed as unoccupied and vacant at nomination; the owners had begun restoration, including foundation stabilization, porch repairs, siding removal and a new standing seam tin roof.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:54:19.123101-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/96/9728/40972896/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_TX/80004140.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/80004140/259e79bd4e-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/80004140/259e79bd4e-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","author":"JERRYE &amp; ROY KLOTZ, M.D.","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SHAPIRA_HOTEL,_MADISONVILLE,_MADISON_COUNTY,_TX.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">JERRYE &amp;amp; ROY KLOTZ, M.D.</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SHAPIRA_HOTEL,_MADISONVILLE,_MADISON_COUNTY,_TX.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/40972896","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapira_Hotel","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q54871488"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/texas/madison-county/shapira-hotel-80004140/"}