My Genealogy Hound

GEORGE F. HURLBURT. There is more genius necessary to properly and successfully conduct a hotel, than, probably any other business, as the work brings the proprietor in direct contact with characters and dispositions seldom found and not often displayed outside of the home or at the hotel. Mine host, Hurlburt, of the popular Dunkirk hotel bearing his name, seems to be possessed of this characteristic in a large degree. George F. Hurlburt was born in Forestville, Chautauqua county, New York, September 13, 1860, and is a son of John F. and Anna Maria (Griswold) Hurlburt. John Hurlburt (paternal grandfather) was one of the Chautauqua county pioneers. He came from New Jersey and settled at Forestville in 1840. He was a wagon-maker by trade and carried on this business in Forestville, at the time of his death which occurred in 1858. John F. Hurlburt (father) was a native of Forestville and for many years carried on a large carriage and wagon factory there. After quitting this business he opened a hotel in the same town, which he conducted until 1870, when he moved to the oil district and continued the same occupation there until 1882 when he died, aged fifty-six years. Mr. Hurlburt was a member of the Baptist church, the Masonic fraternity and of the Republican party, being an active and energetic worker in the latter, and very popular among his friends and acquaintances. He married Anna Maria Griswold, a native of Westmoreland, Oneida county, New York, in 1854, by whom he had three children. She resides with her son, is a member of the Baptist church and is actively engaged in the church work, although she has reached the age of fifty-nine.

George F. Hurlburt spent his first ten years in Chautauqua county and went with his father when he moved to Petroleum Centre, Pennsylvania, in 1870. His education was acquired at the public schools and then he went to Buffalo, securing employment in the large cracker works of George Mudgridge & Son, which place he retained until 1880, when he resigned to join his father in the hotel business at Knapp’s Creek, Pennsylvania, where they remained for two years and then went to Farnsworth where the father died in 1882. In 1884, G. F. Hurlburt came to Dunkirk and opened the Hurlburt House at the time of the Congressional convention of Chautauqua and Cattaraugus counties and entertained one hundred and fifty guests. He continued proprietor of this house until 1886 when he went to Youngstown, Ohio, and with G. R. Baker opened the Todd House, a building containing one hundred and fifty rooms, and elegant in all its appointments. Under the new management it developed into a big success and was run for a year when they sold out on a good offer. Negotiations were then commenced for the Sherman House of Jamestown, but the proprietors flunked and Mr. Hurlburt was in a fair way to secure the Brazell House at Buffalo, just at the time of the disastrous fire resulting in the loss of life. He then went to Kansas City, Missouri, and engaged in the real estate business making considerable money, finally trading some property there for a hotel in Chicago, which he ran on the European plan for one year. The Arlington Hotel at Erie, had passed through many vicissitudes, many of which were depressing. Mr. Hurlburt took charge of it in 1888 and placed it on a footing equal to the best, but the owners sold it and he went to Van Buren Point and conducted a summer resort for the season. But his greatest triumph is the Hurlburt House in Dunkirk, with which he has been connected since 1889 and which is now said to be the best hotel between Buffalo and Cleveland. The table is the equal of the best, the service is without a superior, every convenience is in use for the comfort of the guests and last but far from least, is the genial-mannered proprietor who circulates amongst his guests and makes each feel that he is at home.

In 1886 he married Etta Vandevort, one of the most charming and noble young ladies of Dunkirk.