By Kathy Graves
From the Materials and Files in the Historical Society, Meamber Collection, and Genealogy Library on Miner Street in Yreka
Early references to a hotel in Yreka cite a narrow, two-story brick house built in the 1850s, that evolved into a more expansive hotel with 167 feet frontage, becoming one of the largest and finest hotels in Northern California. It housed a restaurant, hotel bar, sweet shoppe and the Wells, Fargo and Company Express Office. The iron doors in back of jewelry shop are still there from what was the Wells Fargo office.
President Rutherford B. Hayes and his wife, Lemonade Lucy” stayed here on the last stage trip of any length by a President of the United States.
From the earliest days of this hotel’s history we think it was called the “Franco-American” from the get-go, however several articles reveal that it was often referred to as the “Yreka Hotel” not as its official name but as a hotel in Yreka. There was a time in the late 1950s and 1960s when it was named the “Hotel Yreka” but was later changed back to the Franco-American.
