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| "Ginger" and delighted guest at the Anderson House |
The Anderson House is a fifty-plus room rustic hotel built in 1856 in the sleepy Mississippi River town of Wabasha, Minnesota. Besides being haunted, it was also notorious as a cathouse.
I mean literally a cathouse. One of the most outstanding features of the hotel was its supply of felines. Subject to availability, each guest could request a mellow and affectionate cat for company, and the hotel staff would deliver the animal, along with food, water, toys, and kitty litter, to the customer's room. Due to the popularity of this feature, smart guests reserved a cat in advance. A clowder of the creatures was maintained in a comfortably-furnished glassed-in kitty dormitory, and a guest could view the stock there to select a particular four-pawed companion for his overnight stay.
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| Anderson House cat dormitory |
The Anderson House provided the inspiration for a 1990 children's book Blumpoe the Grumpoe Meets Arnold the Cat, which features a grumpy old curmudgeon who is befriended by a black-and-white cat at the hotel.
Unfortunately, the economic crisis shut down the Anderson House in 2009, and the resident cats were distributed to new homes. The hotel has since re-opened under different management, but lamentably, felines are no longer provided.
And, to my credit, please note my scrupulous eschewing of atrocious puns in this feature, such as stating something like "it was the purrfect place to spend a night."
And, to my credit, please note my scrupulous eschewing of atrocious puns in this feature, such as stating something like "it was the purrfect place to spend a night."
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| Roster for July 8, 2008 |
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