History of The Tiger

• 1928: A year after a steam shovel broke ground, the 10-story, 115-room hotel opened with a dinner-dance party. One newspaper deemed it "Columbia's first skyscraper."
• 1935-1937: Rose Wilder Lane lived in hotel room 916, a far cry from her mother Laura Ingalls Wilder's little prairie house.
• 1954: MFA Insurance made plans to use the building as office space but soon deemed the building "too vertical." Apparently, they like things more horizontal.
• 1979: The hotel was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
• 1983-1984: Local residents living on lower levels, as well as hotel guests, could party the night away on the top floor. The exclusive City Club and adjoining dining room, City Lights, joined the Glass Tiger Lounge a year after the original nightclub opened.
• 1986-1987: The Tiger Hotel was auctioned twice in bankruptcy sales.
• 1990: Westin Financial Group bought the building and reopened it as a residence for senior citizens under a new name, the Tiger-Kensington.
• 1996-2007: After renovations by new owner W.L. Properties, the building continues to house senior citizens as the Tiger Columns.
• 2005-2009: The Tiger Columns' ballroom transformed into the Forrest Theatre venue for the True/False Film Festival. The venue was named after Forrest Rose, a local columnist and bass player who passed away in 2005.
• 2009: In February, the Tiger applied for $1.7 million in tax increment financing in order to convert the building into a 62 to 69-room boutique hotel. On June 10, the Tax Financing Commission voted to recommend the proposal to the City Council.