The large painted name in the old photograph leaves no doubt about the building’s first identity: Wickwire Hotel. Three stories rise above the street, with a projecting cornice along the roof and people gathered near the ground-floor doors. The same building would later become familiar to generations of residents as the Hooper Inn, a place for meals, rented rooms and community meetings.[1][2]
The 2026 self-guided tour identifies it at 103 West Howard Street. Its history reaches from railroad travel in the nineteenth century to a family restaurant and bar in the twentieth, with several changes of ownership and one short-lived name that might surprise people who remember only the Inn: the Peppermint Steakhouse.[3][4]
A hotel beside the railroad
The 1976 centennial history credits Frank Wickwire with building the hotel in 1885. The Nebraska Historic Buildings Survey also assigns it an 1885 date. In its 1994 examination of Dodge County, the survey described a three-story building of brick and frame construction south of the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley Railroad. It connected the hotel’s construction directly to railroad traffic.[1][5]
That relationship helps explain the building’s place in Hooper. A hotel provided accommodation in a town whose grain trade and movement of people depended on rail connections. The survey considered the Wickwire a potentially significant surviving example of the county’s hotels from its settlement and expansion period. That assessment is a historical survey finding, rather than proof of an individual National Register listing.[5]
The Wickwire was not Hooper’s first hotel. Andreas’s 1882 state history described an earlier hotel built in 1871 and then operated by F. M. Tillman. Keeping the Tillman House and Wickwire separate matters: references to Hooper’s earliest lodging business should not automatically be attached to the building on Howard Street.[6]
An early operator missing from the usual list
An 1893 biography adds a name to the hotel’s early history: John McKeage. It says he arrived in Hooper as a station agent in December 1882, held that position for four years, clerked in a store for six months, and then operated the Wickwire Hotel for about six months before becoming a bookkeeper for A. M. Spooner. The account does not give exact dates for his hotel work or say that he owned the property.[7]
The 1890–1891 Nebraska State Gazetteer names N. Adkins as the Wickwire’s proprietor. The centennial book identifies him as Norris E. Adkins and dates his operation to 1891–1899. Beth Heine Cobel’s family account in the same book recalls her grandfather Adkins buying the hotel after returning to Nebraska, then selling it to Joe Vlasak in 1899.[8][1][9]
The Vlasaks began a long family chapter. According to the centennial history, Joe operated the hotel until his death in 1905. His sons Harry J. and Joe A. continued it, with Harry becoming sole owner in 1908. The book carries the family’s operation through 1942.[1]
A small advertisement supplies another dated name without resolving the ownership history. On July 4, 1913, the Daily Capital Journal in Salem, Oregon, printed a cough-medicine testimonial identifying Frank Young as manager of the Wickwire Hotel in Hooper, Nebraska. The appearance of a Hooper hotelkeeper in an Oregon advertisement shows how a commercial testimonial could carry a local name far from home. It supports a manager reference and continued use of the Wickwire name in that advertisement; it does not establish that Young bought the hotel or replaced the Vlasaks as owners.[11]
A room for the community
The Inn also helped Hooper conduct its own business. The centennial history records 40 businessmen gathering there on June 10, 1920, for a meal intended to revive the community’s commercial organization. A surviving photograph shows another Commercial Club meeting at the Inn in 1937, with club president J. P. Harms among the men around the table.[2]
These gatherings show a different side of a hotel’s work. The building accommodated visitors, but its dining space also brought local people together to discuss the town’s needs. The photograph preserves that role as clearly as an exterior view preserves its architecture.
In 1942, Martin Vonnahme of Carroll, Iowa, bought the building, equipment, fixtures and four lots, according to the centennial history. Anton Zauner assisted in the business. Henry J. Russ, a former Hooper resident and retired railroad employee, purchased the Inn in 1947 and planned redecoration and larger dining facilities.[1]
The Fachman years
Both anniversary books place the Fachman family’s arrival at the Inn in 1953. The 2026 book identifies the buyers as Fred A. Fachman and his son, Fred V. Fachman. Fred V.’s 2018 obituary also records the father-and-son purchase and associates his operation of the Inn with the years 1953–1992.[4][10]
The later anniversary history describes a restaurant and bar serving breakfast, lunch and dinner, with rooms available for rent until 1980. It also preserves an interruption in the family’s operation. In 1978, Don and Leona Smith ran the business as the Peppermint Steakhouse. The Fachmans reacquired the business in January 1980 and restored the Hooper Inn name.[4]
Fred and Heidi Fachman retired from operating the Inn in 1992, but continued to own the building. The 2026 history records its sale to Rhonda Cash in 2010. The distinction is important: the family’s 57-year connection as building owners does not mean that the restaurant operated continuously under their management until 2010.[4]
What the records still leave open
The exact 1953 transfer sequence needs further documentation. The 1976 book records a March purchase from Viola Cadle by Elsie Paulsen and Jack Poole, followed later that year by Fred A. Fachman’s ownership. The 2026 account describes the Fachmans buying from Cadle. The sources agree on the Fachman arrival year, but do not establish the same chain of transactions.[1][4]
We also have not established when Wickwire Hotel formally became Hooper Inn. Dated advertisements, menus, hotel stationery, room registers or sale notices could help answer that question and fill gaps between the named operators.
You can find the building in the Hooper self-guided tour records. If your family saved photographs or papers from the Wickwire Hotel, Hooper Inn or Peppermint Steakhouse, please share what you know with info@celebratehooper.com, including any date or names written on the item.