Clarksburg in 1900 was a city on the make. The coal industry was transforming north-central West Virginia, drawing investors, engineers, salesmen, and labor from across the country. The city lacked a large, upscale hotel for the business travelers and social events the boom was generating. Goff filled that gap. He hired the American architect Harrison Albright to design a seven-story brick and terra-cotta structure that would announce Clarksburg's arrival as a regional hub. Construction began in 1902 and stretched over two years. The result was a Beaux-Arts building with a symmetrical facade, a prominent corner tower, and classical detailing - red brick at the core, cream-colored terra-cotta for the flourishes, all carried on a steel frame. A bank and shops opened on the first floor. The hotel above had no rivals in the state.

The lobby ran 60 feet long, with ceilings of 31 feet and a mosaic tile floor that drew the eye up to a crystal chandelier. Ten marble columns, accented with ivory and gold, framed the space. The reception desk was mahogany. The plasterwork ceilings carried Beaux-Arts motifs. A grand ballroom upstairs had an oak parquet floor polished to a mirror shine. There was a library with leather-bound volumes, private dining rooms, electric lighting, and an ice plant - the kinds of modern amenities a 1904 luxury hotel was meant to advertise. Guest rooms came with high ceilings, plaster moldings, mahogany furniture, and heavy velvet drapes. Across America, this was the era of the great urban hotel; the Waldo was Clarksburg's contribution to that age.

Guy D. Goff - Nathan's son - kept a suite on the fourth floor as his official residence and offices during his Senate term from 1925 to 1931. The hotel doubled as his political headquarters. In 1928, a group of conservative U.S. senators met at the Waldo to plan how they might block Herbert Hoover's nomination and elevate Goff in his place. The effort never gained the momentum its organizers hoped for. Goff received 18 votes at the 1928 Republican National Convention - a respectable showing for a favorite-son candidate, but nowhere near enough to derail Hoover, who took the nomination and went on to win the presidency. The Waldo's role in the affair is one of those small footnotes in American political history that nonetheless gives a hotel building a flicker of national significance.

By 1962, economic pressures and shifting travel patterns finally closed the Waldo as a hotel. Two years later, the newly accredited Salem College acquired the building, hoping to use it as part of an expanding Clarksburg footprint. Salem also bought the Carmichael Auditorium in 1965 and the Carmichael and Mitchell Building in 1966, repurposing them as gymnasium, science department, and library. The Waldo's tenure as a college building was brief - by December 1969, Salem had moved out. The hotel was used intermittently for other businesses and as residential space into the early 1990s, then largely abandoned. The Vandalia Heritage Foundation, a West Virginia preservation non-profit, took ownership. Vandalia has restored other landmarks across the state, including the 1901 Buxton and Landstreet Building, the High Gate Carriage House, the Grafton B&O Station, and the Peacock Building.

Clarksburg city council has periodically discussed demolition. The arguments are familiar wherever an aging downtown landmark sits empty: falling debris is a public safety hazard, the building costs money to insure and secure, and the lot could in theory host something newer and more profitable. The counterargument has held the building up so far - demolition is expensive too, and once a 122-year-old Beaux-Arts hotel is gone, no city has ever brought one back. For now, the Waldo stands. Its corner tower still rises over Clarksburg's downtown. The bricks Goff laid for his father's namesake hotel are still in place, even if no guests have signed the register in 60 years.