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St. Andrews has had many hotels: Kennedy's, The Argyll, The Algonquin, and many home-sized hotels such as the Railroad Hotel, The American House, Windsor House and numerous others. The history of the Algonquin Hotel, built in 1888 by the St. Andrews Land Company is almost a history of the town since that time. The Argyll was a venerable precursor, and along with the three Campobello Hotels (The Owen, the Tyn-y-coed and Tyn-y-maes) marked the true beginnings of St. Andrews as a watering place. The king of the local hotels was and is undoubtedly the Algonquin. Created as a part of a land development package by the St. Andrews Land Company in 1888, the Algonquin has rented three out of every four rooms available in the summer term for the best part of its existence. But it should be emphasized that the Algonquin did not create the summer tourist business. It rode a wave that had broken ten years earlier on the shores of Passamaquoddy Bay with the Campobello Hotels, the Argyll and Kennedy's. A perusal of the old newspapers shows that there had always been hotels of one sort of another in St. Andrews, These were mainly boarding houses; the only large hotel in the pre-1881 period was the Railroad Hotel. With the completion of the St. Andrews and Quebec Railway to Woodstock in 1869, the pressure on the town to create a fancy summer hotel to cater to summer visitors increased greatly, leading eventually to the Argyll and after it the Algonqin.