In 1958 the building and hotel business was bought by the Russell family, who owned a drycleaning and dress suit rental business in the next block south. (This building still stands and is the canvas for Toledo’s iconic Martin Luther King mural; it still bears the Russell family name on the front.)
Legend has it that father was trying to come up with a new name for the hotel, and son happened to glance at a typewriter sitting nearby, a Royal brand — and the rest is history.
Hotel Royal ceased operation by the 1990s. Public-private efforts to convert the building to a hostel later in the decade failed, and it sat vacant for over thirty years, until now.
