Manufacturer: Carr China Company
User: Broadway Central Hotel Coffee Shop – Oklahoma City
Distributor: T.M. James & Sons
Date of plate: circa 1920s – 1930s
Notes: This plate was used at the coffee shop in Oklahoma City's Broadway Central Hotel, managed by B. M. Kahn. The hotel was located on the corner of Broadway and Fourth Street. According to Edwards, Oliphant & Ottaway's Vanished Splendor, Volume III: "Originally built in 1910 as the Broadway or Broadway Central Hotel at 421 North Broadway in Oklahoma City, it became the Lamar in 1942, and, in 1964, the Noble Hotel. It closed in 1973 and became a parking lot shortly thereafter."
Advertisements for the Broadway Central Coffee Shop in The Oklahoma Advance, circa 1922, have slogans such as:
"The sooner you eat at the Broadway Central Coffee Shop you sooner you'll find the place you've been looking for";
"The Best is not good enough for Broadway Central Coffee Shop guests"; and
"When you've supped at The Broadway Central YOU'VE supped."
With the T. M. James & Sons distributor's backstamp in Kansas City, it makes sense for this to be from a Midwestern client, and not from the better-known Broadway Central Hotel in New York City.
Source:
Doug Dawgz Blog: Other Downtown Hotels
Contributors:
Content: Susan and Ed Phillips