Ann Lulu (Rockwood) Hall was born on October 15, 1873, in Salt Lake City, Utah, to Charles Welcome and Anna B. (Starr) Rockwood, a prominent pioneer Mormon family. At the age of 15, she opened a boarding house for railroad workers where she did the cooking and cleaning. On December 3, 1891, Lulu married Hubert Lester Hall in Salt Lake City, Utah, a man twenty years her senior. Hubert was in the hotel business.
They had four children: Dorothy, Persia, Hubert and Anna Lulu while they were living in Utah. The family moved to Cuernavaca, Mexico, where they became noted business figures running resorts and hotels.
While in Mexico they had four more children: Theodore, Charles Clark, Helen Ryder and Catherine Elizabeth. Four of their children died and were buried in Mexico. The Mexican Revolution changed their lives, and Hubert escaped with his two daughters from his first marriage to Santa Monica, California. Lulu stayed in Cuernavaca with Catherine Elizabeth and lived on rations. She and Catherine Elizabeth escaped on a train in a stock car and ended up in San Francisco, California.
Lulu came to Arizona to raise Catherine Elizabeth and bring her other children back to her who were with relatives in Idaho and Utah. She became separated from Hubert and was granted a divorce in December 1919. Lulu became an accomplished single woman. She managed the Lolomai Lodge in Oak Creek Canyon, Ingleside Inn in Scottsdale and the Weatherford Hotel in Flagstaff.
She built the Kinlani Apartments in downtown Flagstaff, across the street from the Weatherford Hotel in the mid-1920s. She worked very hard and expected others to do the same. She never seemed to have doubts about her successful competition in the business world and accepted each new day as a challenge. She was an inspiring example of one who had overcome much greater obstacles in life than most people would ever be required to face.
In 1926 she purchased the Beale Hotel in Kingman, a seventy-five-room lodging place on US 66. The hotel was her most significant contribution to the development of Mohave County and northwestern Arizona. The location was a major stop on the transcontinental highway and railway system.
Lulu was active in her community, and Soroptimist International paid a tribute to her in March 1956. Lulu died July 13, 1956, at the Williams Hospital and was buried at the Flagstaff Citizens Cemetery, in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Donor: Jeannie Glass Flood, 2014
Photo Location: Digital Format Only – I-Drive>Rose Garden Photos & Bios>RG TIFF Portraits>Hall, Lulu (Rockwood)
Updated: 4/15/15; D. Sue Kissel
