June 20, 2023 Re-Settles

The Liberty Gazette

June 20, 2023

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

We got a hot tip on some cool digs, and it sounds like a perfect sky trip. Some friends from the airpark just returned from Big Spring after traversing the Permian Basin. It seems most of the hotels were full, but then they heard about a posh place downtown that had some vacancies. They found the price to their liking and decided to stay. 

They said you could see this place from a long way off as you come into Big Spring. It’s a fifteen-story art deco hotel built in 1930 by a man named W. R. Settles who owned some land upon which oil was discovered. Settles bought the property at West Third Street and Runnels and built his hotel, which opened in October 1930 with great fanfare, a place to rival any five-star New York hotel. But the Great Depression zapped Settles’ fortunes, and within two years, he was bankrupt and had to sell. The property changed hands many times after that, and in 1980 the Settles dream came to an end when the doors closed for good. The building was trashed by vagrants and became an eyesore. 

Cue Brint Ryan, native son of Big Spring, now a rock star of CPAs, who made his fortune after moving to Dallas and working as a tax accountant and became world renown. He purchased Hotel Settles in 2006 and invested a small fortune ($30 million to a billionaire is nothing) in returning it to its original 1930’s opulence. Ryan reopened the hotel in December 2012 with a great celebration. Each floor has only five rooms, or more appropriately, suites. And it isn’t that far out of the price range of the Hilton Garden Inn or Holiday Inn Express.

We have landed in Big Spring a number of times. However, those were just refueling stops as we headed west. We are now thinking of taking time to explore those hidden jewels of the western part of the state and might push back at the winds to Big Spring for a weekend getaway. This may even be a candidate for another fly-and-bike trip. From a satellite image, it looks like we can ride our bikes from the McMahon-Wrinkle Airport on the southwest side of Big Spring, and staying off I-20, meander about four miles into town, past the state park, maybe stop in at H-E-B for an energy bar, and make it to the magnificent, storied hotel in half an hour.

Best-selling novelist Bryan Mealer, also sprung from Big Spring, wrote the most beautiful piece on the history of Hotel Settles in Texas Monthly magazine shortly after Ryan re-opened the hotel. You can find Bryan’s article on the internet by going to the magazine’s website and searching “Up with the Old Hotel.” From its fabulous past, through its era of shame, to its crumbling decay past the point of no return, to its shocking rebirth that spread hope for a future for the town mourning it, Hotel Settles is beckoning us. 

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com