POWERS —  Patricia Adamek is pretty sure it was the sound of sirens that woke her up on New Year’s Day. The sun still was well below the horizon, so there was little doubt as to what light was shining through her window.

“I could see it was something burning,” she said.

It didn’t take long for her to realize it was the Powers Hotel. She ran into her yard, then drove toward the blaze.

She stood for an hour snapping pictures as the 92-year-old building succumbed to the flames.

No one was hurt by the blaze because, in spite of its name, the Powers Hotel hasn’t been in the hospitality business for years.

Once known as The Clubhouse, the two-story structure had become a controversial subject in recent years after the city took ownership of the property. Some viewed the building as a potential focal point for downtown redevelopment. Others saw it as an eyesore that should be leveled. Eventually, the city simply sold it to get the property back on the tax rolls.

The property is owned by Bruce Clark of Drain, who purchased the hotel from the man the city sold it to for $25,000, Tom Elam of Powers.

Clark declined to comment for this story.

According to the Coos County Assessor’s Office, the land was valued at $40,000 and improvements are listed as $15,000.

Adamek said the old hotel could become something greater, though she realized it would be expensive.

“I could see the potential, but I knew it was going to take millions of dollars to refurbish it,” she said. “It was a dream that just kind of went away.”

The Powers Hotel had been perhaps the most prominent reminder of Powers’ heyday. The Smith-Powers Logging Co. built it between 1915 and 1916 as a boarding house. The company also built a roundhouse, depot, machine shop and company store in those early years, but a fire in 1923 destroyed much of the main street developments. The Clubhouse survived, and continued to serve as a weekend rooming house for loggers.

By the time Adamek’s family arrived in town in the 1950s, it still housed loggers as well as fishermen looking to hook steelhead on the nearby Coquille.

It was serving as a hotel in 1986 when it was added to the National Register of Historic Places, though it had begun to fall into disrepair. The National Register application noted that only 20 of the 37 guest rooms were in a rentable condition. The rest needed “minor repair work and repainting,” the document said.

That wasn’t the case when Steve Skinner first entered the building at the corner of Second Avenue and Hemlock Street. Skinner served as a board member of A’Toll, a nonprofit that took stewardship of several dilapidated hotels around the state, including Powers Hotel and Hotel North Bend.

“It was being vandalized, transients would stay inside and kids were partying in there,” he said.

The nonprofit got some inmates from Shutter Creek Correctional Institution to help remove between 75 and 100 cubic yards of garbage from the building.

“We cleaned it out enough to make it showable,” Skinner said.

The nonprofit eventually sold the building to the city of Powers in 2005 for $1. The city appointed a caretaker for the property and held several meetings to consider possible uses for the building, but nothing happened.

Some people suggested the city should remodel it into a hostel, a business incubator or else relocate the library or fire station into it. Others suggested a developer could turn it into a nice bed-and-breakfast or restaurant. Then there were some who thought it should be torn down because people supposedly used drugs there, said city record Charlotte Pancheau, who also was on the council when it purchased the property.

Pancheau liked the idea of using the building as a community center, an idea she remembers discussing with former councilor Phillip Wolcott.

“It had a wonderful courtyard with rocks and plants,” she said. “It is a loss. A tremendous loss.”

All that is left of the building are some metal washbasins, tin cans and an old bathtub amidst a sea of ash.

The Powers Hotel fire has been one of several to break out in the past few weeks in the tiny town. Fire also consumed a personal garage, owned by Jeff Allred, just down the street from the hotel. He and some others were cleaning up the remains of the building in hopes of being able to reuse the foundation. He said he initially thought the fire that destroyed his garage was an accident. But when the Powers Hotel went up the same night another fire was reported on Avenue H, he started to wonder about the possibility of arson.

“It puts a shadow of doubt in my mind,” he said.

Allred said he may be able to rebuild his garage, but it won’t be possible to replicate what used to stand down the block.

“It was a shame to see that hotel go up like that,” he said. “It was one of our few landmarks left around here.”