129 – Hotel Pere Marquette
February 8th, 2007 
The Hotel Pere Marquette. Opened to great fanfare in 1927 as a five star hotel, it would turn into the Peoria Hilton in the 1970’s only to go bankrupt and close in 1980. After a 20 Million dollar refurbishing, it reopened it’s doors in 1983 under new ownership and is again undergoing a multi-million dollar upgrade. To this day, it remains vital to the downtown landscape of Peoria.
The Hotel is named after the famous French missionary Father Jacques “Pere” Marquette who explored the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers.
The photo above is the “before” from the spring of ‘06. This is the “after” photo and how it looks today. Much nicer, don’t you think?
(congrats and thank you to epmaggie)
(.25 points go to JW for being in the neighborhood)ÂÂ
Official Website: http://www.hotelperemarquette.com/