The Lincoln Hotel was anything but a legendary Detroit hotel, yet it is still notable as one of Albert Kahn's few hotel designs.

The Lincoln Hotel Co. was incorporated on Dec. 19, 1916, and almost immediately got to work on building the hotel. By the next month, work was already under way on the four-story brick hotel on the northwest corner of East Grand River Avenue and Centre Street.

The Lincoln was designed for Harry L. Pierson by Kahn and associate architect Ernest Wilby. The hotel featured 111 rooms and had shops and a large cafeteria on its ground floor. Even before it was completed, the building was leased to the Hannan Realty Co. and Irving G. McCulley to operate.

The hotel opened Oct. 16, 1917.

The hotel survived for several decades, until a demolition permit was issued May 2, 1949, to make way for a parking garage for Hudson's. That garage was itself demolished in 2003, and replaced with the Detroit Opera House parking garage that opened in 2005.

This Lincoln Hotel is not to be confused with smaller hotels by the same name on Washington Boulevard near Michigan Avenue and another on West Vernor.

More on this building coming soon.