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| Title | Conrad N. Hilton sitting at a head table |
| Series Title | Conrad N. Hilton |
| Description | Conrad N. Hilton sitting with several other unidentified people at a head table at what looks to be a banquet. Philip G. Hoffman is standing at a podium in the middle of the head table. Conrad Hilton was born in San Antonio, New Mexico and attended Goss Military Institute, New Mexico Military Institute, and St. Michael's College. His first experience in hotels came in 1907, when his father converted part of the family general store into a hotel. He enlisted in 1917 and served as a lieutenant in the Quartermaster Corps of the American Expeditionary Force during World War I. In 1919 Hilton purchased his first hotel, the Mobley, at Cisco, Texas. It was the beginning of a hotel empire built in three stages: first, by leasing and renovating old hotels; next, by building new hotels on leased land, primarily in Texas; and, third, by buying existing hotels at low prices. Hilton opened a new Texas hotel every year between 1925 and 1930 and by the onset of the Great Depression owned a total of eight. Economic hardship lessened nationwide travel and forced him to close his El Paso hotel in 1933. He recovered, with the help of Shearn and William L. Moody, Jr., of Galveston and a number of other investors, and subsequently merged his hotels with the Moodys’ operations to form the National Hotel Company, of which he was one-third owner and general manager. The merger failed, however, and in 1934 Hilton resumed his independent operation with five hotels. He served as chairman of the Hilton Hotels Corporation and of Hilton International Company, which became a subsidiary of Trans-World Airlines after 1967. In 1954 he assumed the mortgage and operation of the Shamrock Hotel in Houston and acquired the Statler hotel system. In all, Hilton eventually owned 188 hotels in thirty-eight United States cities, including the Mayflower in Washington, the Palmer House in Chicago, and the Plaza and Waldorf-Astoria in New York, and fifty-four hotels abroad. After 1965 he was chairman of the Hilton-Burns Hotels Company, Incorporated. He received honorary degrees from numerous universities. In 1969 he made a $1.5 million gift to the University of Houston. This was to go toward the construction of the Center for Continuing Education and the School of Hotel and Restaurant Management to be housed there. The Board of Regents decided to name the school in honor him because of his generous gift. He died on January 3, 1979, at Santa Monica and was buried at Calvary Hill Cemetery in Dallas. Hilton gave the bulk of his estate to charity through his Los Angeles-based Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, established for the purpose of promoting world peace, helping children, and supporting Catholic nuns in their work with the poor. |
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| Original Item Location | ID 1969-037, Box 6, Folder 105 |
| Original Collection | UH Photographs Collection |
| Digital Collection | University of Houston People |
| Digital Collection URL | http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/p15195coll6 |
| Repository | Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries |
| Repository URL | http://info.lib.uh.edu/about/campus-libraries-collections/special-collections |
| Use and Reproduction | In Copyright: This item is protected by copyright. Copyright to this resource is held by the creator or current rights holder, and the resource is provided here for educational purposes. It may not be reproduced or distributed in any format without permission of the copyright owner. Users assume full responsibility for any infringement of copyright or related rights. |
| File Name | uhp486cc.jpg |