Well, people nibbled around the edges but didn't quite make it to this week's Mystery History solution.
In the photo above, chambermaids from the Hotel Maryland compete in a promotional bed-making contest in 1931.
There was a mad dash from the starting line:
Bed linens were flying as the chambermaids rushed to complete the task:
Pretty beds all in a row.
The winner with the fastest bed-making time: Blanche Scott.
Located on Colorado Street between Los Robles and Euclid, the Maryland was a resort hotel built in 1903. After it burned to the ground in April 1914, it was rebuilt (designed by Myron Hunt) and then demolished in 1938 to make way for The Broadway department store.
The hotel spanned from Walnut Street on the north to Colorado Street on the south, Los Robles Avenue to the east and Euclid Avenue to the west. The only remaining portions of the hotel are a building of condos on the northeast corner of Union and Euclid, and fountains behind All Saints Church that are now incorporated into Plaza las Fuentes.
A.M. Clifford was fire chief from 1901 to 1919.
From the Pasadena Fire Department website:
The Maryland Hotel fire turned out to be particularly difficult to extinguish, as a large natural gas line under the hotel continued to spew forth flame long after the hotel had burned to the ground. In spite of all efforts, the valve to shut off the gas could not be located until hours later, when it was found underneath a recently poured cement sidewalk.
