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upholstery shop. Dub Watley spent years reupholstering the sofas and chairs that the thousands of hotel guests used. Jana still has a table and chairs from the hotel that was given to her father.

When Midlanders learned that the historic hotel was to be demolished, many of them wanted something to remember it by. Fortunately, the furnishings and décor were auctioned off. Penny Willhite remembers the auction and people buying large pieces of furniture. But smaller items were desirable, too. “I think I came away with a trashcan,” she laughs. Items like placemats, matchbook covers, telephone book covers, and pictures that hung in the guest rooms can still be found in estate sales, antique shops, and even on Ebay. The late Nancy McKinley made sure the Midland Historical Society got hotel memorabilia to display. But Homer Brinson may have saved one of the best parts of the hotel. He purchased the actual ballroom foor! Years later his daughter and son-in-law, Relda and Ray Sale, donated the oak fooring to Midland’s Greentree Country Club. Thanks to their generosity, Midlanders can still twirl on the polished foor and pretend they’re dancing at the fabled Hotel Scharbauer!  MLM

ABOVE Many of the Scharbauer familymembers are buried in Midland’s Fairview Cemetery. TOP LEFT Arnold and Mae Scharbauer with their two daughters, Martha and Lynn. The family often took their aunt out to eat on Sundays. TOP RIGHT Lovie Newman, Jana Morrison’s grandmother, to worked at the soda fountain in the hotel’s drugstore.