The first hotel to occupy this site was the Union Hotel, a wood frame building erected in 1849. Renamed Bracken House for a subsequent owner, it continued to serve the city until 1889. Civil War General Joseph L. Hogg, father of future Governor James Stephen Hogg, gave a rousing patriotic speech from the front steps in 1861, and infamous outlaw John Welsey Hardin was held for two weeks in the hotel by the local sheriff in 1872. Architect Theodore Miller razed the wooden structure and built the 65-room brick Acme Hotel in its place in 1889. It was destroyed by fire in 1905.