The “large and commodious hotel” was built by George W. Jose in 1886 along what would become the Bell’s Gap Railroad.
The rail line was completed in 1887 when extended from Irvona to Punxsutawney by the Clearfield and Jefferson Railroad Company.
The first known license was issued by the court in January of 1887. The annual fee for a license in 1889 was $150.
The hotel’s register from April of 1887 to 1889 contains information from each guest, including the number of horses to be housed in the hotel’s livery stable.
Guests were listed from Delaware, California, West Virginia Maryland, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Ireland.
Newburg Borough was incorporated in 1885, while the post office retained the name of Hurd since 1862. The post office name was changed to LaJose in honor of George Jose in 1887.
Jose was born in Maine in 1845 and married Nannie Mahaffey in 1878. He was “one of the most enterprising and public-spirited citizens of Clearfield County” who “has achieved wealth by his own unaided exertations and is, in fact, a self-made man starting out in life with nothing but youth in his favor,” according to Beers’ Commemorative Biographical Record, 1898.
Besides a hotel proprietor, he was a farmer, raftsman, logger, involved in real estate and operated a general merchandise business at LaJose.
