The Kahler Hotel

The E.A. Knowlton house, built in 1875, became the first Kahler hotel after it was purchased by former Cook Hotel manager John Kahler in 1906. Later additions brought it to the size seen in these 1910s postcards. After the construction of the Kahler Grand Hotel across the street, the old hotel was renamed the Damon Hotel, after Hattie Damon Mayo, wife of Dr Will Mayo. Following a wintertime fire, the Damon Hotel was demolished in 1960 to make way for the Mayo Clinic's Damon parking ramp, which itself was demolished in the late 1990s and replaced by Mayo's Gonda building.