The historic Spur Hotel in downtown Archer City is the favorite overnight accommodation for visiting dove and deer hunters, perhaps as much for its taxidermy décor as for its proximity to abundant north Texas hunting grounds. Bibliophiles love it as well. Texas writer Larry McMurtry’s “Booked Up” bookstore with its hundreds of thousands of volumes is located just around the courthouse square.

Archer County landowner Will Andrews hired the Shamburger Lumber Company to construct the three-story hotel, designed during the rise of Art Deco. The deco details along the building’s roof line and its cast iron, star-shaped anchor plates securing the overhang are the only enhancements on an otherwise plain brick façade.

The Spur opened as the Andrews Hotel in 1929, just in time for the dramatic stock market crash and the onset of the Great Depression. The 1929 crash took its toll on the Spur as well as its owner, whose fortune in cattle, oil, and investments collapse along with the stock market. But the hotel managed to remain in business until 1966, changing names from Andrews to Archer Hotel and finally the Spur. Other businesses occupied the building after the hotel closed including a domino parlor and editorial offices for the local Archer County News. In 1990, an Archer City family renovated the Spur, reopening it as a boutique hotel with 12 rooms, and the revived hotel now host writers’ workshops, family reunions, and business retreats alongside guests spending a quiet getaway weekend.