There are spaces where you enter and there's just a certain feeling, there's a certain energy.

And The Old Hotel has that.

I looked down the hall and like, kind of, in the lobby there.

It was kind of like the building was, like, saying hello again after many years.

It was created as an art gallery, but it's always been so much more.

As a kid, I remember driving up Main Street, there was a Kentucky Fried Chicken which was a big treat because we didn't have any fast food in my town.

So come down.

I want show you- This is where I believe the original depot and railroad yards would have been.

The Old Hotel was just up the way.

It was a busy time.

Four trains coming through a day for the Milwaukee Road.

My grandmother's dad worked on the Milwaukee Road.

My grandmother, Gladys Para, was one of a group of mostly women in 1975 who founded the art gallery there.

My mom grew up in Othello and took me to the old hotel as a child for arts classes.

I believe you worked closely with my grandma over the years.

- I did.

I do know it was a railroad hotel.

It housed the workers between shifts upstairs.

There was a group of people taking art classes at the home of June Lampe.

The Old Hotel became available, they put the money together to buy it and it and opened in October of 1975.

The original charter donors of The Old Hotel Corporation were June Lampe, Joyce Rickman, Joyce Lund, Will May, Gladys Para and Dick and Donna Donnelly.

- I was here, when they started renovating it and hauled the stuff out of the upstairs bedrooms, which was kind of fascinating.

- My aunts they were young, maybe teens at the time and they remember helping their mom clean it out and get it ready for the public.

- It's still not easy to be a woman today.

But, you know, things were different then.

You have to run the household and you have to cook and you have to get your kids to school or wherever they need to be, and then to turn around and dedicate time to this project that you don't know if it's going to be successful, you're not getting paid to do it.

I think you had to really be passionate about that to make that commitment to The Old Hotel.

There's an overlook right here.

I was a kid the first time I came here.

My best friend, her mom, was actually the director, so she had the job that I have now.

I would come here with them and take art classes.

- Everything from painting, woodcarving, which required special permission from a parent.

We'd have up to 100 kids in the summers.

- So take your wing and grab your marker.

So just trace the outside - Art is very special to me.

I feel like it informs every part of my life, from storytelling to photography to, you know, how I raise my children.

- Teamwork.

- Mines kind of short.

- I began to realize the role the hotel did play in the community.

Not only as being a historical landmark, which it is, but also bringing people together.

- I had plans to leave as soon as I turned 18.

I always end up coming back.

I don't want our kids to feel like they have to leave to find opportunities and success and happiness.

I want that to be available to them here in Othello.

- She lived near the river and we would visit her there and sit on her porch at the foot of the Saddle Mountains at Beverly Gap there, where the old railroad train crossed.

I always wished I had had a chance to interview my grandmother.

And I didn't.

And it's an important story.

It's a place that has endured for 50 years.

I just think The Old Hotel is a symbol of that determination and that real community mindedness that she had and that those women had at that time.