Mount Vernon Hotel and Ale House

The former Mount Vernon Hotel and Ale House of Easton, Pennsylvania has a list of previous tenants and owners that would make your head swim!  Easton historian Richard F. Hope documented the history of this building, and its early beginnings.  The basis for the hotel was likely a brick tenement built sometime between 1831 and 1841.  It was originally a two-story building, but a third story was added sometime after 1841.  The building was identified as rental property in 1847 when it was sold, and in 1850, Preston Brock rented it and opened the Mount Vernon Hotel.  By 1875, it was described as a two-story, five-cornered tavern house.

A 1906 photograph shows it with four stories and the turret, looking much the same as it does today, with the exception of the turret cap.  It was originally a bell-shaped cap with a spire. The Kuebler Brothers owned it in 1915, but prohibition took its toll.  They were brewers, and there is some speculation according to Hope’s research that a speakeasy was operated in the building following prohibition, and that the brewery was in the stables/carriage house behind the hotel.

At the end of World War II, the Kueblers sold the hotel to Helen Snyder, who operated the hotel for the remainder of the century.  It was closed in 2004, and re-opened in 2012 as the Two Rivers Brewing Company.

Source: Easton historian Richard F. Hope, who contributes to the EastonHistory.com tour of historic buildings in the downtown historic district.