When Pietro Trolio came to America, he settled in Canton and first had a fashionable restaurant and later a hotel, according to The American Citizen newspaper, the official Journal for the City of Canton the mid-1800s. Born near Genoa, Italy, his popular restaurant was feted in the publication with, “If you want to see a friend from the county any day during court week. About noon you will find him at Peter Trolio’s Restaurant. Everybody goes there.”
Trolio’s home on the square was part of a huge fire and the paper reported soon thereafter, “Peter Trolio has almost finished his house on the west side of the Square. It is neither creditable to Pete nor to the city. It will always be a tinder box, a dread to the neighborhood, and an eye sore to our citizens, who must always reflect upon what might have been if our city fathers had been more prompt in their action just after the late fire.”
In 1869, Trolio built his original hotel, a two-story structure at 127 North Union and it was known as the European Hotel with well-appointed rooms and fine dining. In 1875, Trolio secured the services of a new chef which was also reported in the paper.
“Magnolia Restaurant on the West Side of the Court Square. Desires to call the attention of all his old friends and the public generally, to the fact that he has secured the services of a first-class French cook, who served five years as such at the Overton Hotel in Memphis and two years at the St. James in New Orleans. His long experience justifies the propretor (sic) in assuring his patrons that his table will always be served with the BEST IN THE MARKET, and at prices to suit the times. The bar attached to the Restaurant will always be supplied with the choicest wines and liquors and guests will be waited on by polite and attentive waiters of long experience in the business. A few well-furnished rooms for guests are attached to the premises. Board per week, $5.00”
The city was growing as five railroad lines transported visitors, businessmen and many more into Canton. With the growing community, Trolio and his son Victor saw the need. Trolio brought the city his finest dish – a new hotel. Built next door to their current hotel, it opened in 1891 with three stories, forty-three rooms, an expanded saloon with two front balconies. Trolio’s reputation including furnishing a good dining room, a great saloon and was known as a “gentleman who never served minors or drunks at his bar.”
The local newspaper was quite upbeat about the new establishment.
“The $10,000 hotel of Peter Trolio will soon be finished. The New Hotel Trolio was recently opened in Canton (Nov. 21, 1891). It is said the furniture and equipments cost over $50,000. Covers were laid for 300 guests, and the menu was tasteful and elaborate.”
By 1904, the hotel was three stories “with fancy balustrades on the main square in Canton.” A key feature of that establishment was the saloon on the ground floor. A flyer for his establishment, emphasized “anxious to please.”
The Canton Picket newspaper noted the saloon’s details.
“The barroom had walnut woodwork and was beautifully fitted up and papered in exquisite colors. The saloon contained huge mirrors and Corinthian pillars of walnut, which framed the entrance to the large adjacent poolroom. Even the immense icebox was covered in walnut veneer and decorated with plate glass and diamond-shaped mirrors.”
The second floor of the hotel housed Trolio’s son, Victor’s liquor where he stored and filled orders for jugs and bottles. He then fulfilled orders all over the state and used the railway for delivery. The first “autonomous” vehicle of sorts was Victor Trolio’s mule that needed no driver as it ambled to the depot with its liquor cargo. The mule would even return to the hotel on its own.
A fire during the winter of 1913 burned the third floor of the Trolio Hotel so badly that he elected not to replace it and managed with the remaining two floors. Today, as a two-story hotel, it stands restored and is on the National Registry of Historical Buildings.
According to local newspapers, on December 5, 1902, The Hotel Trolio brought in “new management.”
“Today, Mr. Pietro Trolio, the genial ‘mine host’ of Hotel Trolio for more than 30 years, leased the hotel and its entire furnishings to Mr. and Mrs. D.E. Thomas and Mrs. C.I Merrell for a number of years. Mrs. Thomas had successfully proprietorship of the Oxford Hotel. The Hotel Trolio has recently been renovated top to bottom, newly furnished and re-carpeted. The appointments are comfortable, homelike and neat throughout. The new management will add quite a number of modern improvements and conviviences, thus making Hotel Trolio one of the best hostelries in the state.”
But in 1930, a fire began next door to the hotel destroying its third floor. The Trolios decided not to rebuild it and moved forward with their 30 remaining rooms. It remained so through the 1970s. The hotel later became an antique shop as well as a printing and office supply business until the city of Canton purchased the property in 1990. Renovations began and the Allison’s Wells School of Arts and Crafts opened in the hotel space in July of 1991. By 1996, the Canton Convention and Visitor’s Bureau and Film Office called the Trolio home. The lobby was leased as a Welcome Center where hundreds of visitors each year come through.
The 22 rooms upstairs are rented to arts, tourism and film groups in addition to the Mississippi Art Colony, Girl Scouts and Canton Flea Market Arts and Crafts Show vendors. Business meetings, book signings and more are held in the downstairs larger rooms. Major motion pictures have used the Trolio for office and production space.
Life breathed into Canton by an Italian immigrant through his saloon and hotels, Pietro Trolio helped make Canton the historic and booming town that it continues to be.
