Remembering the Tres Pinos Hotel

Standing at the corner of Fifth Street and Highway 25 in Tres Pinos is an E Clampus Vitis plaque commemorating the Tres Pinos Hotel that was there from 1873 to 1958. The hotel was originally known as the Southern Pacific Hotel, which Southern Pacific built when it brought the railroad to Tres Pinos. If I understand the various references correctly, Juan Etcheverry, who owned 1,400 acres of land in and around Tres Pinos, took over the hotel and it became known as the Etcheverry Hotel.

What was the hotel like? Here's what Marjorie Pierce wrote on page 129 in East of the Gabilans:

". . .the hotel was a bustling place. It was to Tres Pinos what the Plaza Hotel was to San Juan. Hay and grain buyers and stockmen would come and stay. The train would stop overnight before going back so the railroad men also were guests. The station was across from the hotel and the turntable was a short distance away. In the kitchen there were three Chinese cooks to handle the busy dining room. There was a pool room, a public room with a fireplace and poker tables, and a bar which was probably called a saloon in those days. . . ."