History at a Glance

This story is adapted from a memoir written by Pauline Barrom, niece of Bertha Cameron.

Shelton was a bustling logging community when George and Bertha Cameron arrived in 1924 to open a boarding house. Seeing possibilities in the old Methodist Church building, recently damaged by fire and sitting empty at the corner of Second and Cota, the Camerons bought it. After acquiring a quarter of a block at Second and Grove, they moved the church building to the new location, refurbished it, and on March 12, 1925, opened it as the Cameron Hotel for room and board customers.

In addition to serving loggers and aspiring new business entrepreneurs, in 1927 the hotel fed and housed many of the construction workers who were in Shelton to build the Rayonier Pulp Mill.

It soon became apparent the booming town needed additional sleeping quarters, so George and Bertha borrowed $18,000 from American Savings and Loan and built a three-story brick hotel at the corner of Second and Grove, next to the original boarding house. This new Cameron Hotel held its public grand opening on Sept. 16, 1927.

An article in the Mason County Journal described it as "sporting hardwood floors, except for the lobby's attractive terrazzo floor. It is modern, sound proof and fireproof in construction, and has all the appointments of the hotels of the larger cities."

Only three years later, Bertha found herself running the hotel entirely on her own after George died of a stroke. Past her 40th birthday, Bertha now not only had to care for 30 rooms every day, but also tend the desk and keep up with all financial details. For a while she hired help when she needed it, but as business slowed down she again did it all on her own, even laundering and ironing all bedding and towels.

Times became so tough that Bertha told American Savings and Loan to "come and take it," but the loan officer coaxed her not to give up, and arranged for her to pay only the monthly interest. Times were tough all over and the company didn't want the large building on its hands. If Bertha kept it clean and heated, it would be more valuable when business improved.

Bertha had several steady tenants, so she agreed to keep the hotel open, struggling along year after year. During those lean years, she appreciated the company of relatives and friends, who were frequent visitors and always found a room available. When days at a time went by with no one arriving to reserve a room, Bertha enjoyed golfing and playing bridge - often leaving a sign on the reception desk advising that she would "be back soon." Then, when the United States entered World War II in December 1941, the U.S. Navy took over Shelton's small air field and built a Naval Auxiliary Air Base. Workers at the base kept all 30 rooms of the Cameron Hotel filled through the war years.

Bertha ran a respectable establishment. During the war, with Army and Navy men stationed or bivouacking around Shelton, Bertha kept an eye out for "shenanigans." One night a lady rented a room, and soon two young soldiers came into the lobby, bypassed the reception desk, and proceeded to the lady's room. Normally, Bertha would tend to such matters herself, but this time she decided to call the police. She was glad about that later, when the lone responding policeman showed definite signs of a struggle, including broken glasses, when he came back into the lobby with the young woman in tow.

Bertha was a lively hostess and always had some fantastic tales to tell, perhaps embellished a little more each time. One that didn't need embellishing was a night when two young men came in and demanded money at gunpoint. Earlier that day, an unusual premonition had prompted Bertha to remove the money from the cash register and hide it in her bedroom. The would-be robbers, so scared themselves that they were unable to hold their weapons steady, ransacked the office and left empty-handed. A deaf man napping in a chair in the lobby slept through the whole thing, his bulging billfold untouched.

Then there was the snowstorm of 1943-44. The first measurable snowfall in more than a dozen years piled up over a foot deep on the hotel's roof. Bertha and several of her boarders traipsed back and forth on the roof, dumping shovels full of snow off the edge to keep it from collapsing. And when Goldsborough Creek overflowed following heavy rain and high tides, water flooded Second Street and got into the Cameron Hotel's ground floor - for years afterward, water marks could be seen on the legs of the piano in the music room. It was most important to keep water away from the furnace in the basement. Bertha and helpers managed to save the heating and hot water systems by stacking sandbags around entrances to the furnace room.

In 1945 at the age of 65, Bertha Cameron paid off the mortgage on her hotel, sold it to Mr. and Mrs. Clemens of Seattle, and bought a home at Fourth and Euclid streets in Shelton. She continued to play bridge with members of her old club, took up gardening, growing "everything from potatoes to rose bushes," and enjoyed entertaining friends and relatives until she died at the age of 91.

Over the years, the Cameron Hotel changed hands a few more times. By 2012, it was a derelict building sheltering transients and feral cats. Early on the morning of May 21, 2016, a fire started inside, possibly caused by transients lighting a warming fire, and the building burned to the ground.

■ Jan Parker is a researcher for the Mason County Historical Museum. Email her at [email protected]. Membership in the Mason County Historical Society is $25 per year.