it from the estate of William Tuell in March 1888, leased the hotel. Eventually, Crawford Fairbanks purchased the hotel and property, and promised to demolish the existing structure and build a new hotel on a much grander scale on the site. It would be left to his heirs, however, to see this promise through to its completion following Fairbanks' death in 1924. Although the decision was made to go ahead with the project in 1925, work did not begin until early 1927. Following the demolition of the old hotel, work began on the new Terre Haute House in the spring of 1927. It opened on July 2, 1928, to great fanfare and high hopes. Fred & Harry Van Orman, Inc., a Chicago-based hotel management company owned at the time by E. L. Wenzel, took over the new hotel's operations and Wenzel himself became the manager. Al Capone During the old hotel's long existence and the new hotel's early years, the country's rich, famous, and infamous were frequent guests. Rumored to be among the infamous to take advantage of the city's finest in hotels was Al Capone. With a thriving red light district during those years (though modest compared to the activity which had existed in the 1910s and 1920s), Terre Haute had gambling and prostitution operations that were attractive to visitors like Capone. A biography of Benjamin “Scatman” Crothers seems to be the source of the story that Capone stayed in Terre Haute, but this can neither be confirmed nor denied. It has also been said that the infamous bank robber John Dillinger stayed at the Terre Haute House, although some dispute this. Dillinger supposedly had a deal with local police so they would leave him alone, but this, too, cannot be confirmed. Downtown in decline The vice that for so many years had run rampant in Terre Haute was on the way out by the time Terre Haute businessman and Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Tony Hulman purchased the hotel along with the Terre Haute House Garage and Terre Haute Opera House in 1959. Hulman, whose fortune had been made in his family's distillery, wholesale grocery and baking powder businesses, radio and TV stations, utility companies, and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, wanted to breathe new life into the old hotel. When construction started on Interstate 70 along Terre Haute's south side, more and more stores and other businesses found that