The creak of weathered floorboards beneath travelers’ boots, the warm glow of lobby fireplaces crackling with Douglas fir, the chime of a front desk bell. From the days when “checking in” meant signing your name with a quill pen, Lewis County’s historic hotels have been rolling out a red carpet of hospitality for generations of wanderers. While the journey here has evolved from stagecoach and dirt roads to heated seats and scenic byways, these timeless lodgings offer the same respite they’ve provided since the county’s territorial days. Ready to literally check into history? Then book your next stay at the heart of Lewis County’s hospitality with the help of these historic hotels!
Olympic Club Hotel
112 N Tower Avenue, Centralia
360.736.5164
Among Centralia’s historic lodgings, the Olympic Club Hotel reads as a dime?novel come to life: mahogany bars, leaded?glass canopies, a colossal Round Oak stove and enough whispered legends to fill a saloon. The saga began when the Olympic Club opened in 1908 as a “gentleman’s resort,” complete with a barber shop, bar, card room, pool room, shoeshine, and cigar counter. Topping it all off was lavish furnishings, such as Belgian crystal and Tiffany lamps; only the best of the very best elegant entrapments expertly curated to separate loggers from their weekly wages, and it worked beautifully until they needed somewhere to sleep it off.
Cue a new next-door establishment in the form of the Oxford Hotel. Built by a local lumberman in 1913, it originally opened as Hotel Crawford with a tavern inside known as the New Tourist Bar that still operates today. The following year, the name was changed to the Oxford Hotel, paying homage to a saloon of a similar name that once existed on the site; this business name would survive into the early 2000s.
For most of the 20th century, the Oxford Hotel and the Olympic Club lived like rowdy siblings—connected by walls and clientele, sharing patrons, scandals, and Prohibition-era escapades but divided by ownership and purpose. The Oxford’s notoriety peaked in 1921 when the “Gentleman Bandit” Roy Gardner was captured in the hotel after having escaped from federal guards just days earlier and riding into Centralia on the cow-catcher of a slow-moving train, only to be recognized by the sharp-eyed proprietress Gertrude Howell, who collected the reward while Gardner collected a one-way ticket back to federal custody. This high drama was standard fare during Prohibition when Jack Sciutto’s bootlegging empire turned the basement into a liquid goldmine where he resided as “King of the Bootleggers.”
For decades, the hotel thrived on its clandestine reputation, where whispered tales of a second-floor brothel were matched by legends of a bootlegger’s tunnel beneath the basement. This theory gained credence when a potential barrel storage area from the Prohibition days was discovered under the club in 2001.
After falling vacant in the 1970s, the building was rescued by the McMenamin brothers in 1996 and reopened in 2002 as the unified Olympic Club Hotel. Today, the 27 guest rooms are named after the colorful cast of characters who left such a mark that you could almost say, they never truly checked out.
The Relax Inn
550 SW Parkland Drive, Chehalis
360.748.8608
Originally opened as the Cascade Motel in the 1930s, The Relax Inn carries the easygoing spirit of early American road travel, as simple, dependable and ideally placed for a long drive. The Hollis family ran the motel for more than 60 years, making it a familiar landmark for generations of travelers. In the 1990s, Azad and Geeta Patel purchased the property, renovated it, and relaunched it as The Relax Inn in 1994, adding modern touches like jacuzzis and refreshed landscaping while preserving its approachable roadside charm. As a reward for their efforts and commitment to preservation, the inn received a Community Spirit Award in 2003 for its positive local impact.
Inside, The Relax Inn aims for comfort without fuss: rooms come equipped with free Wi?Fi, flat?screen TVs and air conditioning, and the inn’s complimentary parking is a practical perk for road-weary guests. Its location in historic Chehalis, just off I-5, makes it an ideal base for travelers exploring Lewis County or simply passing through between Seattle and Portland.
The Patels’ upgrades created small luxuries that matter on the road, from plush towels to tidy grounds, while keeping rates affordable. Whether you’re on a family trip, a business stopover or a weekend getaway, the inn offers a welcoming, budget-friendly option. Check in, unwind, and let the highway hum fade into a good night’s sleep.
Centralia Square Grand Ballroom and Hotel
202 Centralia College Boulevard, Centralia
360.807.1212
Rising from downtown Centralia like a Jazz Age dream, the Centralia Square Grand Ballroom and Hotel began life in 1920 as the proud headquarters of the local Elks Club, designed by renowned architect Joseph H. Wohleb, who left his mark across Washington’s capital region. For 66 years, this 28,000-square-foot edifice served as the social hub for Centralia’s movers and shakers, hosting everything from charity galas to secret handshake meetings beneath its soaring ceilings.
When the Elks sold the lodge in 1986, the building transformed into the Centralia Square Antique Mall, trading fraternal brotherhood for vintage treasures and adding a restaurant that served nostalgia with a side of pie. The property might have remained a repository for yesteryear’s castoffs if not for a local couple who purchased it in 2013 with visions of restoring the second-floor ballroom to its Roaring Twenties splendor.
Their ongoing restoration walks the tightrope between preservation and practicality, keeping original claw-foot tubs, marble showers, and 1920s hardwood floors while adding modern heating and cooling systems that Elks of old could only dream of. Guests today find rooms ranging from spacious suites with private baths to cozy quarters with shared facilities down the hall. All deliberately TV-free to maintain the vintage atmosphere. However, Wi-Fi keeps the 21st century within reach.
The addition of a Parkview Terrace offers an outdoor retreat overlooking Washington Park, while hallways lined with century-old photographs remind visitors they’re sleeping where Centralia’s elite once plotted civic improvements between rounds of billiards. Located conveniently off I-5 halfway between Seattle and Portland, this family-operated gem proves that sometimes the best way to move forward is to restore what worked brilliantly in the past.
Historic Hotel Packwood
104 Main Street W, Packwood
360.494.5431
Rising from Packwood’s main drag like a weathered timber baron, the 1912 Hotel Packwood has logged more than a century of hospitality in the heart of Gifford Pinchot National Forest. Local lore insists that President Theodore Roosevelt himself graced these halls when the paint was barely dry, leaving such an impression that a hand-carved statue of the Rough Rider still stands guard on the porch. The original Douglas fir floors tell their own tales through spike marks left by loggers’ caulk boots, while burn marks circle where a potbelly stove once warmed guests who’d spent their days felling giants.
Built when the town was still finding its feet (and its name—it went through Sulfur Springs and Lewis before settling on Packwood in 1930), this rustic landmark served as command central for the timber economy that boomed through World War II and beyond.
Today, the oldest building in Packwood continues to welcome modern wanderers drawn to 1.3 million acres of wilderness that sprawl in every direction. Whether you’re chasing waterfalls, volcano views, or simply a good night’s rest after conquering Highway 12’s curves, Hotel Packwood offers the same sturdy sanctuary it’s provided since its inception over a century ago.
The vast forest views from every window are thanks to the hotel’s very own front porch guardian, Roosevelt, whose close partnership with Gifford Pinchot, America’s first chief forester, helped save these mountains from the fate of Eastern forests, which had been logged to oblivion. Together, they created the national forest system that would bear Pinchot’s name, turning timber country into tourist country and giving Hotel Packwood a second act as basecamp for adventure seekers instead of tree fellers.
St. Helens Hotel
Standing tall as Chehalis’s literal high point since 1920, the St. Helens Hotel represents both the pinnacle of Lewis County hospitality and a bittersweet reminder of what once was. This grand hotel traded room keys for apartment leases in 1976. The original wooden inn opened on this site in 1891, part of William West’s ambitious plan to shift downtown from Main Street to Market Boulevard.
Still, the fundamental transformation came when his son William Francis West rebuilt it in brick between 1917 and 1920. The younger West, who later donated land for W.F. West High School, built a hotel worthy of presidents—literally, as Theodore Roosevelt signed the guest register on May 23, 1914, just before the original structure’s partial demolition and relocation. Named for the volcanic peak visible on clear days, the St. Helens served as Chehalis’s social summit for over eight decades, hosting everything from traveling salespeople to civic celebrations.
While you can’t book a room at the St. Helens today (unless you’re looking for a year-long lease), this National Register landmark still anchors the south end of Chehalis’s historic downtown as the city’s tallest building and most visible reminder of its hospitality heritage.
The West family maintained ownership from inception to 1976, when changing travel patterns and interstate motels finally forced the conversion from transient lodging to permanent housing. Though its lobby no longer welcomes weary travelers and its front desk bell has long fallen silent, the St. Helens stands as a monument to Lewis County’s golden age of hotels, when local philanthropists built for permanence and presidents slept in small-town splendor.
While roads, trains, and travel habits have changed, Lewis County’s historic hotels remain steadfast sanctuaries, welcoming and full of stories. Having survived booms, busts and reinvention, they endure as touchstones of hospitality and memory, inviting weary travelers to stay awhile in these living museums where a night’s stay doubles as a history lesson in local craftsmanship and continuity.
