Back Where It Belongs: Our Historic Front Desk Returns Home

When Dave Drury, the Inn at Jim Thorpe’s Innkeeper and general manager, answered the phone a couple of months ago, he never expected to hear what Nancy Ganner, the caller, had to say. She and her sister were cleaning out the house of their deceased Aunt Elaine, who lived in Myrtle Beach, SC. In her aunt’s living room stood a large, carved piece of furniture that Elaine and her husband had used as a cocktail bar through the years. Tucked inside a drawer, Nancy found an old map of Mauch Chunk, some notes and a history of the American Hotel. The proverbial lightbulb went off: It was the original front desk from the American Hotel in old Mauch Chunk, now the Inn at Jim Thorpe. Realizing what they were looking at, Nancy and her sister said, “We’ve got to get this back to where it belongs.”

After the phone call, Dave, in disbelief, looked at pictures Nancy sent him and verified that, indeed, it was the old front desk. It perfectly matched the historic photos of the hotel that were hanging in the Inn’s current lobby. (See images below.)

So, how did the Inn’s front desk end up at her aunt Elaine’s house in Myrtle Beach?  

Nancy, an avid hiker and outdoorswoman, lives in picturesque Haines, Alaska with her husband. Nancy’s mom was one of 10 children (including Elaine) who grew up in Nesquehoning, and Nancy fondly remembers spending time with her baba, grandmother Anna Kovatch. 

Elaine and her husband Emmett, a retired Army Colonel who worked in Harrisburg, eventually retired to Myrtle Beach. Elaine’s sister Olga married Roy Mohrbach, who was a court reporter and stenographer for the Carbon County Courthouse and lived in Nesquehoning. Somehow, someway, at least 70 years ago, the front desk came into Roy’s possession. Roy eventually sold it to Emmett, who took it to South Carolina. 

We are so grateful to Nancy Ganner and her family for bringing this wonderful piece of history back to us. Shippers brought the front desk from South Carolina a few weeks ago. It was rolled into the Inn’s lobby, where it sits proudly today, just a few feet away from where it stood originally during Mauch Chunk’s heyday, welcoming guests into the grand hotel.