When built, the Ward Hotel encompassed 30 sleeping rooms, an office, a bar, a restaurant, and a full basement for a power plant and a laundry room. It opened for business on May 24, 1908.
Edward Donlan, who built this building as the Ward Hotel in 1907-1908, was significant in Thompson Falls’ history. At age twelve, the Canadian boy of Irish descent left home and went to work. Laying track south of Neihart brought him to Montana, where by 1895 he owned a saw mill in the timber camps. In the early 1900s, he extended his holdings here, with vast tracts to the west and east of town, and many town lots. He also started the Thompson Falls Mercantile Company. Politics was a second love for Donlan, elected state senator in 1902, 1906, 1910, and 1918. In his 1908 bid for governor, he lost by only 2,000 votes. He heartily joined the battle to make Thompson Falls the county seat of Sanders County, and saw a boom period ushered in with that victory. He interested investors in the Thompson Falls Power Company—owning himself several small dams on the Clark’s Fork River. In 1913-1914, he moved on to Milltown and sold much of his property here. His fortune dissipated, Donlan died in 1952.
From the NRHP Plaque at the Hotel
Donlan named it The Ward Hotel after his oldest son Edward. At the time of its construction, it was considered one of the finest hotels in western Montana. Donlan sold the hotel business in 1913 and the building itself in 1915, after which it passed through a number of hands until closing in the late twentieth century. The name was changed from the Ward to the Hotel Thompson in the 1920s, to the Black Bear Hotel in the 1930s, to the Townhouse Hotel in the 1970s. It seems to have been again renamed The Black Bear before closing nearly three decades ago.
After standing empty for more than 25 years the hotel was purchased by a Seattle native with plans to restore the building and reopen it as a hotel, bar and coffee shop. So far, a coffee shop has opened in the building in May of 2019, and plans continue to open more businesses in the future.
For the short time that he owned the hotel Edward Donlan advertised it far and wide, touting the Ward Hotel as the "Best Hostelry Between Missoula and Spokane". In 1913 the new owners continued with the ad campaign. This is one from a local newspaper, the Sanders County Ledger. It was at the bottom of Page 3 of the November 19, 1915 issue.
