The Hoosac Tunnel and Wilmington Railroad reached its terminus in Wilmington village in 1891, stimulating a lumbering boom spearheaded by the Deerfield River Company. Village commerce and the commercial summer trade thrived. Major Childs, one of the wealthiest men in town, commissioned McKim, Mead and White to design this three-story colonial-styled hotel on the banks of the Deerfield River. Closely paralleling the firm's early style, the inn has a shingled and gambrel-roofed main block with a front porch on paired Doric columns that terminates in a porte-cochere at its west end. A large addition to the east and rear of the inn nearly doubled its capacity. It remains in operation today. In 1902 Childs also called on the firm for the similarly styled one-story Memorial Hall to the west of the inn to honor citizens of Wilmington who fought in the Civil War. Modest on its exterior, its classically detailed auditorium is said to be based on the proportions of the architects' Boston's Symphony Hall.