By Katie Strachan
The Oshawa Express

It stood out on the side of downtown Oshawa’s oldest hotel for many years before it was torn down Monday.
The faded yellow and black Million Dollar Saloon sign, which was fastened to the Genosha Hotel for more than 40 years, has been removed. It was the last of the adult entertainment signs hanging in the city.
The hotel, famous for once housing the queen, became a tavern known as the Million Dollar Saloon and rooming house in the late 1960s after the inception of Hwy. 401, states Heritage Oshawa.
The hotel, which was built in 1929, suffered an economic blow once the highway was completed because the amount of long distance travelers on King Street decreased, it says.
The building was purchased by Summers & Co., which have plans to turn the building into a student residence by September 2010.
This is another step towards their vision of rebranding the hotel at 70 King Street East.
“I believe Oshawa is a great city and by promoting and highlighting the extensive revitalization and recent developments in the downtown; the Courthouse, GM Centre, new UOIT Faculties, will help to rebrand the city as a whole,” says Rick Summers, developer of the building.
The company plans to incorporate the rich history of the building into their new state-of-the-art design, says Summers.
The original name, Hotel Genosha, came about after a contest, which was held in 1928. Bertha Hettger won the $100 prize for thinking up the name, which stood for General Motors and Oshawa, says a newspaper article from June 14, 1928.
The newspaper article outlines other possible names for the famous hotel like LaSalle, Cadillac, the Willingdon and the Prince of Wales.
Summers and his partner have plans to host another renaming contest in the near future. As the developers did so many years ago, Summers has plans to offer up a prize including dinner for two for one year at local prominent restaurants, he says.
No dates have been released for the contest yet.