Division Street in Saratoga Springs is so named as it originally was the boundary between the founding Putnam and Walton family properties. Division Street terminates at Broadway, and this important intersection has long been the location of hostelries, which continues presently with the Spa City Motor Lodge.

This site had formerly been occupied by the Worden Hotel, one of the last old-style hotels in Saratoga, which opened in 1866 and was originally called The Marvin House, in honor of the mortgage holder. The name was later changed to The Arlington Hotel, until 1885 when the operation was purchased by William W. Worden.

Mr. Worden’s House had a special distinction in the nineteenth century, a boiler and steam generated source of heat, humanizing upstate New York’s wicked winter weather. The proximity of the D&H Railroad tracks, and the coal storage bins under Division Street’s sidewalks made this possible.

This was a distinction over nearby competitors at the Grand Union, United States Hotel, Congress Hall and the Kensington, which all operated on a seasonal basis and were mothballed during the frigid season.

In addition to overnight accommodations, this hotel had several public congregation rooms to stage events and a famous tavern grill, in rathskeller style.

The Worden became the gathering place for folks who lived in Saratoga Springs year-around, and complemented other four-season downtown establishments such as Convention Hall and the Saratoga Baths on nearby Phila Street. Winter guests arrived in town for ‘Saratobogganing,’ with the Worden providing sleigh transport to the slides.

Dashing through the snow on evening community sleigh rides from the Worden Hotel to Saratoga Lake were a feature of the Winter Carnival of 1923 when this image was captured. Courtesy of the George S. Bolster Collection of the Saratoga Springs History Museum.

The Worden was a prominent masonry structure, in the best Broadway Hotel style of Saratoga Springs. The elevator-equipped inn stood five stories tall, with the fifth floor being incorporated into a slate covered mansard roof and spiked with lancet dormers. The columned two-story veranda faced Broadway, with the entrance to the rathskeller beneath that construction.

The Worden hosted many distinguished guests through the years, including an array of the legends in Thoroughbred racing.  Mark Twain stayed at the Worden, when he arrived to see General Grant at Mount McGregor, in the former President’s final days. During the festive season, Santa Claus always stopped by.

The lobby of the Worden was lined with warm knotty pine wainscoting below patterned wallpaper, with built-in bookcases flanking one welcoming fireplace, with a second across a room of upholstered furniture. Each fireplace was near a lobby outdoor entrance, which during the holidays provided a congenial glow, circulated by fans extending from the tin ceiling. The Division Street side of the Worden building contained embedded storefronts, and that lobby entrance provided access to the Rose Room, which was popular for holiday season gatherings. Across Division Street from the Worden stood the renowned United States Hotel; the piazza along that thoroughfare was known as “Millionaire’s Row,” a famous physical feature of financial fitness.

W.W. Worden was a 77th Regiment Civil War veteran and former sheriff. He had other interests besides operating a major hotel, such as producing an open air theatre. He was a principal in Adirondack Trust and the Congress Spring Company, New York State Republican Party delegate, operated a mining company in Hadley, and became the Saratoga Springs Postmaster, appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt.

Mr. Worden played a critical role in the 1900 sale of Saratoga Race Course, as he was a trusted go-between to both parties in the transaction. He would become a director of the Saratoga Association and sponsored a valuable stakes race, in the fine tradition of the Spa hotels.

Due to Mr. Worden’s diverse business interests, he hired Joseph E. Kelly to manage the Worden, and this gentleman would eventually purchase the hotel upon his predecessor’s retirement. Following his 1916 death, his widow, Anna Kelly, ran the Worden until 1918 when she sold it to the refined Edward C. Sweeny.

The new owner, who lived in the building, prided himself on the highest level of service and providing excellent cuisine. He began using the advertising mantra “modern, in every respect.” He made numerous improvements to the “New Worden,” focusing on the ambiance of the reception rooms and the grill, which remained a popular location for local holiday celebrations where food, drink and decorations added to the merriment.

Proprietor Sweeny commissioned artist Edward P. Buyck to produce several murals that gave the Worden Inn a distinctive atmosphere, which limned Saratoga Springs unique history. Mr. Buyck’s first love was a horse, as he had been a mounted hunter and polo player in his home country of Belgium. He found work with thoroughbred owner and breeder William Woodward, master of Belair Stud, whose white with red polka dot silks were carried by two Triple Crown winners. His position with Belair allowed him to visit Saratoga Springs at the time the turf was dominated by Willis Sharpe Kilmer’s Exterminator, and Sam Riddle’s Man o’ War, and he was on hand to witness Big Red’s triumph in the Travers Stakes of 1920. Naturally, this was the inspiration for the mural he created in the Worden rathskeller, depicting that exciting finish.

Edward C. Sweeny died in 1945, and Saratoga lost a community champion. Besides operating the Worden, he was the lessee of the state-owned Gideon Putnam Hotel, and in 1943 was part of a group that purchased and re-opened the Grand Union Hotel. He was Vice President of the New York State Hotel Men’s Association, Vice President of Adirondack Trust, director of the Chamber of Commerce, Commissioner of Public Safety, served on the board of the Saratoga Hospital and was a charter member of the McGregor Golf Links.

Ownership of the Worden passed to theater magnate William E. Benton, and following his death in 1951, the hotel became a corporate entity.

As track season was ready to get underway at the Spa for 1961, a very unfortunate occurrence took place. The Saratogian on July 26 reported,

“Twenty-four guests escaped safely early today, when a smoky fire, causing an estimated $100,000 damage, broke out in the 122-room Worden Inn, a 95-year-old landmark in heart of Broadway. Three firemen were hospitalized. Management said the hotel will be closed for an indefinite period. Three valuable murals, hanging in the gutted basement bar and dining room, were destroyed. Heavy damage was reported to the first floor of the hotel, while the second, third and fourth floors were hit by some fire, but mostly water and smoke. . .The murals, painted by a Dutchman identified only as Byack [sic], had hung in the bar since the early Twenties. One painting depicted the famous Travers of 1920, showing Man o' War winning the race with John P. Grier second and Upset third. The other murals, management said, showed the original Worden Inn and High Rock Spring.”

Rathskeller bar at the Worden Hotel in 1945 with the Edward P. Buyck mural on the far wall of Man o’ War disposing of Upset and John P. Grier in the 1920 Travers Stakes. An important element of this painting was that in 1919 Upset was the only horse to ever finish ahead of Man o’ War. Courtesy of the George S. Bolster Collection of the Saratoga Springs History Museum.

Nearby Pitney's Dairy donated gallons of milk to be served to courageous firemen, soothing their smoke irritated throats, and only minor injuries were suffered in the conflagration. Two days later the same daily publication reported the heart-wrenching headline “Worden Inn Slated For Demolition.”

Some efforts were made toward saving the antique structure; however, preservation efforts in Saratoga Springs were not as robust as they are presently. Ellen Qua wrote in the Albany Times-Union,

“To be or not to be is the moot question regarding historic Worden Inn, victim of a $100,000 damage fire early the morning of July 26. Whether it will suffer the slings and sways of the demolishing hammer or resume its rightful place in the community is a question of dollars and sentiments.”

A faulty air compressor, or its wiring, in the below-grade tavern was found to have been the cause of the fire. As the unoccupied structure awaited its fate, a safety fence was erected around the building, which was assembled from the doors removed from the hotel rooms inside, sadly all still labeled with their room number. It took until the late winter of 1963 for all the legal hurdles to be cleared allowing the Worden Inn to be demolished, and construction started on the New Worden Motel, which became the Saratoga Downtowner.

There was much lament over the loss of the old pile, and this sorrow was recorded for years afterward in many publications.

The Rose Room dining parlor at the Worden Hotel which displayed murals created by Edward P. Buyck, is prepared for entertaining in this 1945 image. Courtesy of the George S. Bolster Collection of the Saratoga Springs History Museum.

On the pages of the July 27, 1969 New York Times, Frank Sullivan, Algonquin Round Table member and the Sage of Saratoga, gives us an idea how keenly the impact was felt,

“When we were a lad of 60, on the Sunday afternoon before the opening of the Saratoga meeting, the visiting firemen of the turf always gathered in joyful session at the bar of the Worden hotel, now defunct because of fire. Before filing so much as a comma for their journals, the turf writers and friends reported at the Worden bar for our annual Varnishing Day. Varnishing Day is, we hear, a rite observed by artists and has something to do with shellacking their various masterpieces before an exhibition. At our Varnishing Day, we boys shellacked ourselves and each other with liberal applications of Scotch or Bourbon, and without that Worden get-together the Saratoga meeting could not have been considered opened. It was like a college reunion. Racing writers who had actually not seen each other since the previous afternoon at Belmont embraced like long-lost brothers and varnished each other. It was a ceremony of warmth and it is gone, like too many other pleasant features of the past decades.”

The Yuletide custom of jollity at the Worden Inn was lost with that revered structure. There is a historic marker on Broadway that mentions the Worden, and the Bluebird Chain continues to carry on the hostelry trade at this site.

Antique postcard view of the Worden Hotel.