The Big Falls Hotel was owned by Dave and Mary Fosdick and was located on the Cuyahoga Falls side of the gorge. It was connected by stairway to Old Maid’s Kitchen rockshelter and by paths to the Big Falls of the Cuyahoga River. The hotel did not accommodate overnight guests, but was what we call a restaurant; it was famous for Mrs. Fosdick’s chicken dinners. It contained a large dining hall and served a “choice variety of edibles suitable for such a refractory.” It was a “first class orderly house” meaning it did not serve liquors of any kind. A popular story relates that the Hotel would deliver chicken dinners to Old Maid’s Kitchen to be enjoyed on picnic tables provided by the Fosdicks. It is not known exactly when the Hotel closed, but the building burned in 1913.

Lithograph of the Big Falls Hotel (Tackabury et al. 1874:47)