The Walt Whitman Hotel was a venture championed by the Greater Camden Movement, a coalition of business and civic leaders that began to coalesce shortly before and during World War I. They had proven highly effective in raising county-wide funds to support the American war effort. Post-war, their ambitious vision to invigorate economic recovery and hope hinged on the creation of a bridge linking Camden and Philadelphia, accompanied by a community hotel on Camden’s side of the bridge. This plan also included the development of a road network stretching southeast through Camden County toward the Atlantic Ocean.
In 1920, Eldridge Johnson, President of the Victor Talking Machine Company of Camden, committed $100,000 toward the construction of the envisioned hotel, which would serve as the headquarters for the newly established Chamber of Commerce. The Camden Chamber of Commerce, led by LeRoy A. Goodwin, later appointed J. David Stern, owner of the Camden Courier, as the chairman of the Hotel Committee in 1923. Subsequently, the Community Hotel Corporation was formally incorporated in 1924.
A remarkable feat was accomplished in February 1924 when a committee of 370 Camden-based businessmen, spearheaded by James J. Scott, a partner at Strandwitz & Scott sheet metal works, successfully raised $1,250,000 within a span of six days. Scott, who would go on to become the treasurer of the nascent Community Hotel Corporation, played a pivotal role in procuring many of the hotel’s furnishings. The fundraising and building committees boasted notable members such as William Strandwitz (Scott’s partner), W. Leonard Hurley (of Hurley’s Department Store), George A. Munger (of Munger & Long Department Store), Volney G. Bennett (a lumber merchant), Frank Hineline (of Camden Lime Company), Warren Webster (a heating manufacturer), and insurance and real estate agents David Baird Jr., Leon Todd, Ralph D. Baker, and Charles W. Austermuhl. Congressman Charles A. Wolverton also contributed to this endeavor. Additionally, Elmer Ellsworth Long and Andrew B.F. Smith, partners of Munger and Austermuhl, respectively, were deeply involved in the Greater Camden Movement.
A comprehensive account of the construction of the Walt Whitman Hotel was published by the Camden Chamber of Commerce in the September 1925 edition of Camden First, the official publication of the Chamber.
As the 1950s brought economic hardships to the City of Camden, the Walt Whitman Hotel experienced a decline in maintenance. In 1958, the Camden Chamber of Commerce, which had played a significant role in the hotel’s construction and had been headquartered there for numerous years, made a noteworthy shift. Their annual gala was relocated to the newly established Cherry Hill Inn in the adjacent Delaware Township.
Over the preceding three years, several iconic Camden establishments, including Hurley’s department store, the Stanley Theater, the Towers Theater, and the Camden Courier-Post, had either shuttered their doors or relocated to suburban locations. This ongoing trend ultimately led to the closure of the Walt Whitman Hotel itself. Intriguingly, one of the hotel’s final proprietors was Joseph N. Hettel Jr., whose father, Joseph N. Hettel Sr., was an architect renowned for designing numerous banks, apartment buildings, and commercial structures in Camden.
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Herman Z. Cutler
HERMAN Z. CUTLER is best remembered in Camden for the company he founded, Cutler Metal Products Company, which operated at 1021-1025 Line Street into the 1980s. Herman Cutler was born January 6, 1888 in the town of Ilintsy, in what is now the Ukraine. This town had a relatively large Jewish population at that time,…
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Camden Auto Radiator
505-509 Arch Street, Camden, NJ Camden Auto Radiator was located at 505-509 Arch Street. Owned by Herman Z. Cutler, it was one of several auto repair establishments that operated on and just off of Arch Street in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Other shops included George’s Auto Service and the Cooperson Brothers auto body shop. The…
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Centennial Mirror 1828-1928
Centennial Mirror of the City of Camden, NJ Published in the interest of a growing city, nineteen twenty-eight. THE City Commissioners of Camden extend their Greetings to all citizens of the City, State and Nation who may visualize the Camden of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, through this volume which is dedicated to the Cause of…
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Camden’s Chamber of Commerce
The Camden Chamber of Commerce is the clearing house of civic activities. The offices are in the Hotel Walt Whitman Annex on Cooper Street near Broadway. It is supported by the business, professional and civic interests of Camden. The Chamber of Commerce was formed in April, 1919, through a reorganization of the old Camden Board…
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Cooper Street
Cooper Street, named after the prominent Cooper family, holds a significant place in Camden’s history as one of its oldest streets. William Cooper, an early settler in the region, played a crucial role in the area, and for many years, Camden was referred to as Cooper’s Ferries until its incorporation as a city in 1828.…
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Walt Whitman
WALT WHITMAN, Camden’s “Good Grey Poet,” the life of whom a subject that has been written on at length by many. Rather than rehash much that is to be read elsewhere, presented will be things of interest concerning Whitman, his life and times in and around Camden, and comments by those who knew him and…
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