Vendome Hotel by Patrica Sides
For decades, the Vendome Hotel reigned as one of the most luxurious hotels in downtown Evansville. When built in 1890, the hotel (seen here in ca. 1920) was only four stories high, but future expansions promoted it to “skyscraper status,†as a newspaper bragged. Located at Third and Sycamore streets, the Vendome became a social hub for local businessmen and politicians, and the hotel’s Savoy Room housed the Petroleum Club when it organized in the 1950s. When the hotel’s neighbor, the Grand Theater, succumbed to the urban renewal movement in the early 1960s, the Vendome’s days were numbered. The hotel was demolished in 1972, and a bank now occupies the site.
