a porcelain pedestal-type sink, a porcelain tub, and a Starr Brown bottle opener with a corkscrew. Shell-shaped glass light fixtures adorned the bathrooms, and square glass fixtures were still present in the bedrooms. Hundreds of varnished hardwood doors, a lobby full of solid walnut paneling, and much marble were also mixed with the rubble. The basement still contained cooking utensils, china, pots, pans, and machinery at the time of demolition. An antique drill press and other tools were still present in the basement, as well as keys to all of the rooms. Suitability for reclamation The hotel's location in sleepy downtown Terre Haute, coupled with the deterioration of the old building, gave the local government and business community pause when considering proposals to restore the landmark hotel. As restoration cost estimates continued to climb over the years, the willingness of the Terre Haute House's owners (the Hulman family) to work with would-be restorers faded. And while its façade was beginning to crumble, the structure of the Terre Haute House itself seems to have been very sound. The concrete and steel superstructure would have lent themselves well to restoration and upgrading, but with many interior surfaces damaged by decades of water infiltration, any such effort would have been a costly proposition. In addition to the damage brought on by the water infiltration, other factors would surely have inflated the cost of any restoration. Recall that the hotel was built more than 75 years ago. In the three-quarters of a century since that time, construction, plumbing and electrical codes have been updated many times over. Also, the Americans with Disabilities Act requires certain accessibility provisions be made for those with physical limitations. The ADA requirements alone would have proven difficult to satisfy, given the hotel's general layout. Add to that the fact that any one of the other demands of compliance with the various building codes would have pushed the price of restoration significantly higher, and it becomes somewhat easier to understand why the hotel was not restored. In the end, though, political pressure to demolish the old hotel - which was dubbed by Mayor Burke in 2003 “an impediment to downtown revitalization” — ultimately proved to be the final blow for the Terre Haute House. Although reuse advocates still maintain that the 1927 Terre Haute House was a great candidate for restoration (despite the cost), each swing of the 6,000-pound wrecking